# Oil in coolant



## Bandy (Oct 17, 2016)

Hello.
I bought a checrolet cruze 2011 two weeks ago it is 1.8 manual transmision made in korea. 70k miles. I showed it to man who works in car repair service and he told me that there is no oil on engine so it should be ok. He said that it must be previous owner who had his engine repair and did not cleaned the coolant. But i still a little bit scared what to do about it. Thank you.


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

Oil inside coolant is not a good sign... May end up being a blown head


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## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

Or worse a cracked block? I wouldn't drive the car anymore until it can be thoroughly checked out by G.M. or an independent shop


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

Yah that is a bad bad bad bad indicator


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Change the oil and coolant immediately.

Run a leak-down test to see if the head gasket is allowing mixing of the two.


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## ChevyGuy (Dec 13, 2014)

Bandy said:


> I showed it to man who works in car repair service and he told me that there is no oil on engine so it should be ok.


Uh, no. An engine that has some oil on the outside may be messy, but it's no big deal. But oil in the coolant (or coolant in the oil), is a major issue. 

Now, that said, are you sure it's oil? I think coolant normally feels a little odd. Normally it's pink, but I'm not sure what color it takes on when a dye to locate leaks has been added.

Either way, tow the car to a good repair place for proper evaluation.


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## Robby (Mar 1, 2013)

I would recommend a good, complete flushing as well as removing/cleaning of any accumulation in the surge tank.

Once completed, operate the car normally and see what develops over time.

You may be seeing the results of cross contamination.....like the previous owner added something to the cooling system that is incompatable with Dex-Cool......the original, factory fill.
Also, when Dex-Cool is beyond its five year service life it gets rather dark and oily feeling......it will also have a tendency to coat the walls of the plastic surge tank.

Rob


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## apcnc (Oct 7, 2013)

Doesn't look good. Any coolant in the oil? Milky? I'm in favor of flushing the system. If it was repaired I don't see any reason why they wouldn't have flushed the system.


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## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

I cracked a head in my 86 Turbo Dodge Colt. Dodge painstakingly took two weeks to fix it under warranty to find out they reused engine bolts and had to do most of the work over. When I left the Dealership the first time I decided to check the Oil. It was full of Coolant as the block was never drained.


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## apcnc (Oct 7, 2013)

Eddy Cruze said:


> I cracked a head in my 86 Turbo Dodge Colt. Dodge painstakingly took two weeks to fix it under warranty to find out they reused engine bolts and had to do most of the work over. When I left the Dealership the first time I decided to check the Oil. It was full of Coolant as the block was never drained.


That's just pure neglect. I can't imagine what they said to explain that!


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## Bandy (Oct 17, 2016)

Robby said:


> I would recommend a good, complete flushing as well as removing/cleaning of any accumulation in the surge tank.
> 
> Once completed, operate the car normally and see what develops over time.
> 
> ...


Hi. Coolant fluid was never changed. So maybe i should try changing it and cleaning it. If there is something bad i should see oil in it again?


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## Robby (Mar 1, 2013)

Bandy said:


> Hi. Coolant fluid was never changed. So maybe i should try changing it and cleaning it. If there is something bad i should see oil in it again?


That would be correct for the most part.......there likely will be some residual 'goo' that accumulates after servicing but as long as the level doesn't rise, odds are it (what you are currently seeing) is just old oily coolant.

The actual engine oil passages (head to block for cam bearing oiling) actually appear to be only one, branching to two in the head, pressurizing each camshaft feeding oil to each cam journal as well as throwing oil from holes in each cam lobe to lubricate the lobe to follower interface. The head itself has rifle drilled passages to provide oil to the followers known as (HVA's) for short, Hydraulic Cam Followers for long.

This design follows most other manufacturers as far as oiling and engine oil making it into the cooling system is highly unlikely.

In general, the only time oil gets into a cooling system is if the automatic transmission cooler fails (mounted inside the radiator) and, because the trans operates at a higher pressure than the cooling system, trans fluid gets pushed into the cooling system.
Once the engine is shut off, the pressurized coolant is forced through the same spot, migrating coolant into the trans.
Ultimately the transmission is destroyed......trans fluid looks like a strawberry milkshake when this occurs, coolant shows red stripes.

You indicate you have a manual transmission so none of that applies to your car. 

For now, flush and fill and don't frett yet.

Rob


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## pelfrank (Mar 23, 2015)

Hi, it could be radiator stop leak product which you pour into your coolant to hopefully stop any leak. I've used this in my other car.


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## Bandy (Oct 17, 2016)

I drained all coolant yesterday, and filled it with 5 litres distilated water and drained it too it was messy. I filled with 5 litres distilated water again and drained it now it looks a lot better. Anyway today i am buying another 5l bottle of distilated water to clean it. So it will be 15L of distilated water that went through the system i guess it will be enough. After last bottle of distilated water i will fill it with antifreeze and i hope it won't get oily.through


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## nvsws6 (Sep 16, 2016)

Bandy, keep an eye on it, most likely you have a blown head gasket. Run a compression test as well. Best case scenario is that the previous owner put oil in the coolant. Worst case would be, as mentioned before, a bad block.


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