Hi Everyone. Awesome Forums. Great for a newbie like me.

Anyways recently was driving in SLOW traffic for about a hour. And noticed a temp spike on my gauge. Was a little ticked off, as I have replaced my radiator, thermo, hoses, fan motor, temp switch about two months back. So i pulled over immediately and checked out my coolant reservoir. To my dismay I found that instead of bright green, it basically looked like hot chocolate (bubbling of course too.)

So from my beginner knowlegdge of cars, I immediately am pretty sure I blew a head gasket. But from post I hear about "seeing a milky white substance in the coolant" But this was full on dark nasty coolant/ oil (I assume) mixture.

Could this still be a "typical" hg leak. Or is this an indication of bigger problems?

 

When u take the dipstick out is there coolant with the oil?

 

if you take your oil cap off and look inside is it white and milky as well? if there is coolant in your oil most likely its a blown head gasket. there has been cases of new thermostats being faulty from the factory. take it out and boil it in water and see if it pops open. If it's brown like you say it seems like oil is getting in your coolant and vise versa. if u replace the head gasket be sure to make sure the head is not warped. you can check it with a straightedge and a feeler gauge or take it to a shop and get it checked out. how long did you drive the car when it spiked? did you pull over immediately letting it cool off or keep driving a little?

 

Blown head gasket is definitely the issue here. Oil mixing with coolant, and vice versa, along with exhaust gases in the coolant system (bubbling).

 

Yeah I figure the head gasket was obviously blown. But I was just curious that the oil seemed to be mixing into the coolant, while the oil (while low of course), seems pretty untouched by the coolant.

This just worries me a little because most stuff I have read deals with the coolant getting into the oil, more than vice versa.

So i guess long story short. Is it worse to have the oil going into the coolant, or the coolant going into the oil? Also I've heard once you blow a head gasket, there's a good chance you'll be having lots of problems with gaskets in the future??

Side note, head was warped pretty bad, but machine shop said that it'll be alright.

 

well, the only reason you'd have issues down the road with gaskets is that the head was warped. I've also heard that head bolts sometimes warp if the overheating was that bad. as a precaution, i'd swap those out too. if you say the head was warped really badly, then other stuff got overly hot, too.