#Motor oil in coolant reservoir code#

The head gasket keeps the engine seals to ensure the highest possible compression and to avoid any or all type of leakage of the liquids inside (engine oil and the coolant), onto the cylinders.

You likely be able to see the thin line where the head gasket is locate, near where you insert the spark plugs.

Take a look at your engine if you like.

The engine oil’s network directs the oil to the parts of the engine where it is required whereas the same is achieved for water or coolant inside the engine’s cooling system.

One of those networks is the engine oil while the other is for the coolant.

Two different and distinct channel networks are bored into your vehicle’s engine block.

This help protect the engine from foreign elements that might cause wear or damage to the engine. In your car, four wheeler vehicle, or other vehicle, the engine is designed so that it is sealed, and can't be interact with outside elements. To cool down your engine, coolants are used to keep the temperatures of the engine steady and under control. As you drive your car, the engine generates an immense amount of heat, and the oil can cover these move part even when very hot. Oil is a lubricant that is used to cover all the different movable parts of your car’s engine. What does it mean? To answer these questions, let’s first understand the basics of engine functioning, which will also help you to identify, which type of the problems might be causing these liquids to mix in together. If your not familiar with with coolant and engine oil, the rule is that they should never mix. Oil should never mix with the water or any coolant in the coolant system, and if it does, something is going wrong with your vehicle and it will need your attention. If your coolant is brownish or has brownish spots, there's oil mix with the coolant. At times it may be water, but it is usually coolant. Then I checked the bottle of fresh clean oil, and it fluoresces green too! Weird! So, that's pleasantly meaningless.If you look under the hood of your car you should see green or orange coolant in one of the plastic reservoir of your car. I checked the oil fill hole with the blacklight again, and was dismayed to see that the oil definitely had a greenish fluorescent tinge. Still no smoke in the exhaust or chocolate milk in the engine, at least. The coolant tank has been overfull since they replaced the radiator last year, though, and I may have overfilled it previously, too, since the tank is almost impossible to see through. I know from previous head gasket experience that the coolant tank overflowing can be a bad sign. It definitely looks like oil now, though.īut when I stuck a straw down there the other day, it came back with an inch of black goop covering it, and I see black spill marks on and around the recovery tank, so I think it overflowed the cap and pushed the layer of oil out: I checked the coolant again today, added a little water so it came up to the top, and it doesn't look so bad, just a few drops: My friend drove the car for ~400 miles and nothing major happened. Last oil change and inspection was 4 months ago. Under a blacklight, the little oil puddles in the oil fill hole might be fluorescing green? Or it could be my imagination, it's really hard to tell. How do I judge the urgency of this? Is it ok for my friend to drive it 200 miles? :/ĭrove it around for a few miles, temperature was perfect, no smoke in exhaust, no milkiness in dipstick or oil fill hole. I think that part of the coolant tank has been dark for a long time, but it's hard to remember. I don't know if this is fresh oil or it's been in the tank for years. I don't think the coolant level has changed since then. Radiator was replaced over a year ago because the fan thermostat was broken and it was overheating when I stopped moving, and bursted the radiator plastic.

#Motor oil in coolant reservoir code#

I did recently get a pending check engine code P1? for the coolant temperature not being high enough? But most of the time I'm driving it's in exactly the middle where it's supposed to be, never goes over.

The oil level is normal and doesn't seem frothy. A little deeper is clean coolant, and the coolant in the top of the radiator is clean. I was going to loan my car to a friend tomorrow, and checked the oil and tire pressure etc earlier this week, but couldn't see the coolant level, so I just went to double-check it with a drinking straw, and pulled out black goop floating on the coolant.