Toyota Avensis - oil in the coolant liquid

BGelli

Hey, I have a Toyota Avensis from 2008, 2.0 diesel, D4D engine. I've recently found some oil in the coolant liquid, not that much but enough to make a mess at the coolant cap. How serious is this?

TadleyBaggie

Probably a blown head gasket, so fairly serious. If water gets into the oil then serious damage can ensue.

AdrianC

Have you just been doing very short journeys? It could just be condensation.

Is the coolant level dropping?

BGelli

I do mixed journeys, and my coolant level is not dropping. So hopefully, I won't have any water on the oil.

Norman_Castle

If the coolants not dropping its likely to be condensation inside the engine due to the cold weather. Clean the cap and see if it returns. It can also be caused by over cooling due to a faulty thermostat. Does the temperature gauge reach halfway and stay there at higher speeds?

Goudy

It's does sounds like the head gasket has gone.
Oil in the coolant (rather than coolant in the oil) is a classic sign of this on a diesel as they run much higher compression than a petrol, so tend to blow out, but the results tend to be quite noticeable, splattering oil and coolant all over the engine bay when they go.

As it's not blow out all over the engine bay, I would suspect the oil cooler first.
They have a cooler/heat exchanger that the oil passes through one side and coolant the other to cool the oil.

They are very prone to leaking like this and mixing the oil in with the coolant.

You'll find the cooler on or around the oil filter, a quick Google or Youtube search should turn up some help.

BGelli

It's winter here, and it's a pretty cold region as well. And yes, the temperature gauge reaches halfway and stays there at higher speeds. I'll try to clean it though.

forgotmyname

Oil in the coolant is due to condensation?

EGR or oil cooler on that engine? A few cars getting oil cooler issues around that age now. More likely than head gaskets on most engines.

Goudy

forgotmyname wrote: »

Oil in the coolant is due to condensation?

I can't work that out either.

A small amount of water might condense in the engine as it heats and cools and show as a small smudge on the inside of the oil filter cap, but I can't see how oil can condense in the coolant.
So it must be leaking in there.

Norman_Castle

Goudy wrote: »

I can't work that out either.

A small amount of water might condense in the engine as it heats and cools and show as a small smudge on the inside of the oil filter cap, but I can't see how oil can condense in the coolant.
So it must be leaking in there.

Oops. I read it as mayo under the oil filler cap. (hard to concentrate with the neighbours smoke alarm going off repeatedly:()

Op, Ignore my previous post.

jazzy

The Toyota D4D engines, especially the early engines have a manufacturing fault which results in head gasket failure. Unfortunately a new engine is required to fix the problem. First check would be a "sniffer" test to confirm that there is a head gasket problem.