this is a new one for me...

I'm shopping around for a used pickup...see the "farm truck" thread...and found one that's pretty interesting. But the seller shared this tale...

Some guys came to look at the truck, and when she went in the house to get her purse to accompany them on a test drive, they squirted some oil in the tailpipe and into the coolant reservoir.

So after the testdrive, guess what? The truck was smoking from the tail pipe and then they looked at the coolant and said it had oil in it. But not to worry, they'd still buy the car for about 10% of what she was asking!

She told them to hit the road and called the cops and then had it towed to a mechanic who drained the coolant. Since they didn't actually buy the car, apparently the cops couldn't do anything.

This post is 2 part, one to warn y'all of something I'd never heard of. The second part is to ask if that oil in the coolant, even for such a short period of time, would cause any concern to you about damage to the engine?

I don't see how some oil in the coolant would damage the engine or cause exhaust smoke. Maybe a lot of oil might cause some overheating. Exhaust is from the fuel side, a product of burning fuel and air (assuming no head gasket leaks).

Is the smoke due to them spraying oil in the tailpipe? I don't know. Either way I think the way forward is to flush the coolant system, and run the engine for a while to burn out any oil in the tailpipe.

Nothing I would worry about.

I would double check that there IS NO OIL in the coolant. Would hate for the little old lady to be the one lying.

Seems to me if there were Oil in the coolant there's a chance there's coolant in the oil.

Pull the dipstick and look for chocolate milk?

The scam is to out some oil in the coolant reservoir, so someone thinks there is a leak in the engine when there is not.

Definitely checking the oil also.

oil in coolant from a leaking oil cooler will show up in a degassing tank or reservoir as a scummy layer.

I know some cars with the oil cooler or trans cooler as part of the radiator are prone to leaks.
Oil pressure at 60psi vs coolant pressure with relief cap at 16psi, it will show up in radiator first.

chris1515 said:

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The scam is to out some oil in the coolant reservoir, so someone thinks there is a leak in the engine when there is not.

Definitely checking the oil also.

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Yeah I understand the scam. That's why I'm saying check the other half. The scammer didn't hurt the engine adding a little bit of oil to the coolant, but (goodness you hope) there's no way they'd add coolant to the oil.

Oil in the coolant system will not really hurt anything. As long as the oil was PLACED there, either by accident, or by this story being true, it's a non issue. Clean it and drive it.

Water in the oil is an issue and will ruin bearings, or at least shorten their lifespan if they aren't outright ruined. It depends on how much water and how long it's been run that way.


I would not doubt that scummy FB flippers would try some BS like this.



BTW, one way to clean out your coolant system after a blown headgasket is to fll it with laundry soap and run it for a while, drain, rinse, repeat until the oil is gone. The oil doesn't hurt anything and neither does the soap used to clean it out.