Oil in radiator and coolant reservoir 🤯

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Bsav

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Hi all I'm a new member and this is my first post.

I've just noticed I have oil in my coolant bottle and in my radiator. My car has only done 130,000 kms and is serviced every 10000kms. No overheating problems or drive problems ever. Just had a service 3000kms ago and I find oil leaking from the engine bay so I pop the hood and find it has leaked from the coolant reservoir and splattered everywhere.

I've moved to a small town and all the mechanics don't want to touch my car. All saying it's the head gasket or too hard basket.

Any help would be much appreciated!!!
 
Welcome to the forum.


Is yours an auto? If so, it might be the transmission cooler in the radiator has corroded and allowed the auto trans fluid to enter the coolant. Trouble is, it works the other way too - coolant will have found its way into the auto transmission. This will wreck the gearbox. The engine can be flushed, but the gearbox will likely have coolant damage in the valve body and clutches. This can be expensive. If you're still driving the car around, after driving it pop the gearbox dipstick and look at the quality of the oil - milky oil means it's your tranny cooler. Apart from getting the gearbox rebuilt (consider just buying one from a wreck if this has happened) you should replace the radiator and fit an external transmission cooler.



If it's a manual, then there's possibly a head gasket problem although usually these can be detected by exhaust gas bubbling out the radiator cap (and should be visible in the coolant bottle while the engine is running). You could check the quality of the engine oil, because if the leak is coming from the water pump, it will turn the engine's oil milky.


Hopefully it's not too bad. Good luck!
 
Hi Old.Tony,

Thanks for your reply mate. Mine is a manual. I've read up that most problems like this occur when the Oil Cooler is either cracked or leaking.

I've removed that and tried to pressure test in a bucket of water to see if I push air through bubbles should appear if there's a leak or hole.

Haven't been able to achieve this because I can't get the air to pressurize properly. Any idea on how to do this?

I'm trying the process of elimination because I don't want to buy a new Oil Cooler ($800) if I don't have to. I'll try the head gasket test and check the water pump out.

Thanks heaps mate!
 
Hi Bsay,

If it's a head gasket, I'd expect to see cloudy grey oil on the dip stick.

Which model do you have? Petrol, or one of the diesel engines?
 
Hi KevinE,

No cloudy grey oil on the dipstick. I have the 2012 2.5L manual turbo diesel D22 STR.

Hoping it's just the oil cooler, which seems to be the common cause of my issue. Have ordered a replacement then flushing out the entire system.

Fingers crossed it's not a head gasket.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers mate!
 
I'd suggest oil cooler too from reading what you have described. Unfortunately, sometimes it is just easier (not necessarily cheaper short term) to replace suspect components, especially in the throw away society we have these days...
 
Yeah Tony, the turbo is oil and water fed. I'd still suspect the oil cooler more than anything else.
 
I just panic when it comes to turbochargers. I've a fair idea of how to treat them and I've burned 3 of them. The latest - a genuine Honeywell Garrett - is holding up very nicely.
 
I don't think the D22's have an oil cooler, haven't noticed one on mine anyway.
Before buying any parts to replace what you think is the problem, surely one of these mechanics is able to do a compression leak down test. My bet is that you have done a head gasket.
 
The engine oil cooler is located on the right side of the engine block, under the oil filter housing. It has 2 heater hoses running coolant to it.
 
A new oil cooler and o-ring are on the way. Will flush the shit out of it after that and fingers crossed problem solved. Cheers everyone for your advice! This Forum is solid!
 
The engine oil cooler is located on the right side of the engine block, under the oil filter housing. It has 2 heater hoses running coolant to it.

Yup!

I'm casually antiquated with a guy that's very handy on the spanners, who bought a 2011 D22 for $2,000, it had the same symptoms. A one owner car with 289,xxx Km's on it. The seller was honest about it. The car was in good cond otherwise.

He pulled it down & it was the oil cooler. He wasn't keen on spending the coin on a new oil cooler & made up a by-pass using old bits in his spares box & a lathe.
 
The engine oil cooler is located on the right side of the engine block, under the oil filter housing. It has 2 heater hoses running coolant to it.

Thanks mate, had a look and there it was, sort of a round section with 2 hoses going in close together. It has only been 8 years since new and never noticed it there or knew what it was.
 

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