FORD TOUGH

I'm thinking about buying a 96 Mustang GT. The car is getting oil in the antifreeze. Has anyone else had this problem and what was causing the problem?

ackuric

Generally thats a symptom of a blown head gasket

Modular_Madness96

YUP YUP

Unless you plan to do the work yourself or its a ridiculously low price for the vehicle id pass.

volcomchester18

yeah man, run away from it as fast as you can.

Stevecooper

Well that's not really fair, it all depends on his purpose for the vehicle and the price.

volcomchester18

^^ yeah true

waggs

blown head gasket would equal alot of white smoke out the exhaust. when i had oil in my coolant the ford dealership told me that the oil cooler was leaking internally. they ordered me a new one under warranty and then they said it was left over oil from the head replacement they did a few weeks prior.

volcomchester18

yeah, true. Usually you get milky oil or coolant, and white smoke out the back. But an oil cooler leaking internally totally would make sense. Well whatever it is, I personally would not buy it unless it was dirt cheap. There could be many reasons, I remember replacing 3 heads on a expedition, after a few weeks it would loose coolant. Kept replacing head, but problem came back, ended up being a crack in the block.

2000GT4.6

Since its a 96 GT, your going to want to rebuild the engine to at least PI specs anyway. Lowball the crap out of him and do a engine rebuild or, if you can't afford that, a direct swap from a 99-04 GT.

ackuric

I don't know of any mustangs that come stock with an oil cooler, so that is very unlikely. Even if there was an 'internal' oil cooler leak, that doesn't explain the oil in the coolant since an oil cooler does not and would not have coolant passing through it for any reason. Coolant runs through your radiator, through your thermostat, through your intake manifold crossover, through the engine blocks water passages, through the heating system. The only time oil and coolant have the opportunity to mix is inside the engine, during a blown head gasket, unless you're doing the mixing yourself. I've seen 2 blown head gaskets that neither mixed oil or coolant nor blew white smoke, so those symptoms aren't needed to diagnose a blown head gasket.

I cannot stress enough that an oil cooler will not cause oil/antifreeze to be mixed. Another cause of oil in antifreeze, is doing a head replacement without draining all necessary coolant, and allowing oil due to lack of preparation. And on the side, during the winter/short drives you can attain a milky substance on your oil cap that appears to be the cause of a head gasket being blown, in this case its most likely not.