Doug Donsbach

No. There is no way the oil cooler seals will cause oil/coolant intermix. Leakage, yes, but intermix, no way.

fpb111

"When I came back I opened the coolant cap, to have a look at what came out. It does have some oil in there, but what was strange is that coolant dropped from the front right corner on the engine! How can that be?"

POST A PICTURE.
Right front cornet of the engine faces rear on left side of car.
If that is where the fluid is dripping look at the expansion tank and the water pump

Macster

Good catch. I misread 'right front corner on engine' for 'right front corner of car'...

Sincerely,

Macster.

DaveSpeed

I was told by the dealer if you have an intermix problem you will know it. Warning lights and decrease in power. From what your describing it is not an intermix problem. Thats the good news. But I would still deal with your issue of the leak! Problems do not just go away and in these car the issues can be expensive. Better to fix a little problem now than a big problem later.

logray

Oil cooler pressure test.

jsoderbe

Wow, I will definately have a look at that cooler. Thanks!

Sorry for the confusion, I do mean on the engine, to the front right in the cars forward direction.

Sorry I havent posted pics yet, but e car is jacked up for H$R spring install, muffler DIY sport version and wheel replacement. Cant drive it for another few days!


Thanks,

Johan

OnTheMove

Like anything else was it coolant or just some of the normal moisture build up on the cap? You said there was none in the Oil, if it turns up in it look further. If it was moisture and not actual coolant in it. Watch all of your levels one goes up another down there is a problem. But haven't dealt with too many other then a 928S nightmare. But seen alot of cars with a oil water mixture in the fillers, PcV and lines on GM's real decieving with all the Dex cool intake issues : ( I'd would say Clean it off Pressure test the cooling system and look again. No sweet (Coolant smoke) and lotsa white puffs is a good thing. It wouldn't hurt to pull the plugs and see if any looked different or washed out.

And yes some times it does take a taste test, been thru enough leaky cars might take tastes of many things to figure some out. Some times adding a Dye or the color if it does help. Like a tank of E85 in a non E85 engine and a crap load of carbon on and in everything.

Could just be a fresh oil change before you bought it and it was actually complete, down to cleaning the cap.

Good luck,
John

bella1

Three years ago had the same issue. Had the oil tested for Glycol and found none. Had oil in the coolant reservoir obviously. What I did first was replace the coolant reservoir and flush the entire water system with detergent (washing liquid of some kind forget the name). Also removed the radiators including center rad and had them cleaned professionally. Then replaced the water/oil cooler on top right of engine hoping this might fix the issue. Mechanic then replaced coolant 50/50 antifreeze water using the vacuum to be sure we had any and all oil out of the system. At that point, the color of the coolant was a lovely pink!

After two 3 day DE sessions I noticed the brown color again. I drained a liter into a bottle and after sitting overnight it was half water & half oil! So my decision was to replace engine with reman which was then only $8,100. I never had any cooling issues but I could smell a bit of coolant coming out of the exhaust sometimes.

So no I do not think there is a cheap fix for this problem. The question about continued driving involves the old engine and core exchange if you buy a new engine. If you damage the core, I understand that may cost you a bit more. Best of luck.

Flat6 Innovations

Being a 2000 I'd make a wager on a cracked head.. In fact I probably even know where that crack is and could spot it from 5' away.

Don't be fooled into diagnostics to determine if this is a head gasket failure; because these engines crack heads well before the head gaskets blow.. we have NEVER seen a head gasket fail, even when the coolant has been super overheated.

also don't be tricked into the fact that this could be the oil/coolant heat exchanger.. Most every car that comes to us with this issue has had that component swapped and the issue still occurred, because that wasn't the problem. It is what normal shops "throw at" the issue **hoping** that it solves the issue. If they knew what we do they'd just pop the cam covers and start looking for cracks.

The primary mode of failure for all 2000 model year 996 and Boxsters is a cracked head- by far.

Don't continue driving or running the car and get that contaminated coolant out of the system before it breaks down the rubber in the coolant hoses and creates more expensive collateral damage. I have seen times where every coolant hose needed to be replaced after an intermix had occurred; the hoses turn into mush and rupture.

You could have a one off or new occurrence, but I'd put 500 bucks on the fact that you have a cracked cylinder head.

logray

I certainly agree with Jake most Intermixes I read about are because of a cracked head near the spark plug tube.

JFP over on renntech says he has seen oil coolers fail as well... but it doesn't sound as much of a problem or source of intermix.

Flat6 Innovations

If it wasn't a 2000 my hypothesis wouldn't be so firm.. Cracked heads are THE 2000 MY failure. This is due to the head castings.

Had this car had the water pump replaced lately??

fpb111

Cracked heads look similar to this;

jsoderbe

Thanks guys,

Excellent advice, as usual. I have been preparing myself for this the last few days, and actually found a few positives. I wanted to do the infamous IMS/RMS/AOS work anyway, plus that I have a few oil leaks that need to be adressed. All of this is easier with the engine out! Still, I did not want to do this before the car was even registred. It was a looong time since last someone fooled me, but the PO sure got me. There must have been a lot of work cleaning out the reservoir before my test drive....

I will keep my engine, since it runs excellent and also engines is more expensive over here.

Jake, how much is a reman head from you? Or do I send in my for repair once removed?

To be honest, I dont even know if there is one head per cylinder row, or one per cylinder as in the aircooled Porsches....

Jake, I have no idea about the water pump. Should I look for water pump parts stuck in the head?


Thanks,

Johan

jsoderbe

Hi,

With the help of Doug's excellent thread I got the idea to use an inspection camera to look for cracks in no 1 and 6 spark plug holes. Looking at the pictures of cracked heads I thought it should be fairly easy, but it wasn't....

There were a lot of oily residue in the spark plug holes, and together with the limited light and resolution on the cam it was really hard to find a crack. And, with the cam house covers on there is only a small part of the potential crack visible.

I didn't spot any obvious cracks, which actually was kind of a disappointment. My biggest fear is to drop the engine just to find nothing wrong, then put it back in just to find it still intermixing....

Any thoughts? Should I look in all cylinders?


Thanks,

Johan

jsoderbe

Just thought I should mention that I would have seen a crack like the one shown by fbp111 in the pic above.

Johan