Cherryriver
Member
This goes back a year or so to when I first acquired our 2003 XLT (for a very low price). Extremely nice-looking, beautiful interior, signs of good maintenance, but a high-miler; 182K at the time.
Our local shop is really, really good. The inspections they do even during routine oil changes are pretty exhaustive and you get a text message with descriptions and photos of the problems.
On any vehicle we buy, I pretty much always start with an oil change, truck, car, motorcycle. So off the to shop goes the Expedition.
Shortly thereafter I get a call: there's oil in the coolant! Pretty bad, very bad, or worse.
I go over there and the coolant tank is a mess of partly coolant and partly milkshake. I figure, man, we're out three grand right now.
Yet there's no signs of trouble with the oil as they change it, maybe that was a clue and maybe not since the oil pressure is a lot higher than the coolant pressure.
So with our agreeing, they have their lead tech do a flush of the cooling system after some further inspection, because they don't actually see anything else suggesting that there's oil migrating into the cooling system.
A very complete flush, I think he did it twice.
So they send me home and say come back in a week.
I was watching the tank and did not see anything but pretty-looking new coolant.
I go back and the tech takes a looks and says he doesn't see any problem, either. They are mystified.
So I figure, what the hell and just start driving the thing for its intended purposes, mostly getting to jobs.
Time passes, I'm watching the coolant reservoir, and still, nothing but nice, clean coolant.
It's fourteen months later now, and maybe 8000-9000 miles past, and still, everything is fine. Oil is clean as a hound's tooth (whatever that is!) and so's the coolant.
The final assessment from the shop manager (who is a very cool guy and a total car geek) is that somehow, sometime, someone put oil in the radiator or coolant tank.
Yeah, that's so far-fetched I still struggle to believe it, but there you go.
This post is for entertainment purposes only. Do not try this on your vehicle.
Our local shop is really, really good. The inspections they do even during routine oil changes are pretty exhaustive and you get a text message with descriptions and photos of the problems.
On any vehicle we buy, I pretty much always start with an oil change, truck, car, motorcycle. So off the to shop goes the Expedition.
Shortly thereafter I get a call: there's oil in the coolant! Pretty bad, very bad, or worse.
I go over there and the coolant tank is a mess of partly coolant and partly milkshake. I figure, man, we're out three grand right now.
Yet there's no signs of trouble with the oil as they change it, maybe that was a clue and maybe not since the oil pressure is a lot higher than the coolant pressure.
So with our agreeing, they have their lead tech do a flush of the cooling system after some further inspection, because they don't actually see anything else suggesting that there's oil migrating into the cooling system.
A very complete flush, I think he did it twice.
So they send me home and say come back in a week.
I was watching the tank and did not see anything but pretty-looking new coolant.
I go back and the tech takes a looks and says he doesn't see any problem, either. They are mystified.
So I figure, what the hell and just start driving the thing for its intended purposes, mostly getting to jobs.
Time passes, I'm watching the coolant reservoir, and still, nothing but nice, clean coolant.
It's fourteen months later now, and maybe 8000-9000 miles past, and still, everything is fine. Oil is clean as a hound's tooth (whatever that is!) and so's the coolant.
The final assessment from the shop manager (who is a very cool guy and a total car geek) is that somehow, sometime, someone put oil in the radiator or coolant tank.
Yeah, that's so far-fetched I still struggle to believe it, but there you go.
This post is for entertainment purposes only. Do not try this on your vehicle.
