Oil In Water Reservoir??

[djdebbied]

Hi there, I have just bought a 1999 Citroen Saxo 1.1.
It is running fine but when I went to check the water level I noticed there was some yellow/brown ish oil in it - any ideas where this could have come from??!!
Thanks

[Lew_C]

sounds like you've blown your headgasket and the coolant is mixing with the oil, very common symptom a dirty, mucky sort of sludge.. do you have any 'mayo' under your oil filler?

Also it isn't water level its coolant. (antifreeze) if you use just water in there when it gets below freezing point it will just freeze and could ruin your engine..

[djdebbied]

No there is no mayo under the oil filter

[Lew_C]

No there is no mayo under the oil filter

hmm, id definitely still suggest headgasket failure pal, Get a compression test done at a garage? Is there anything else wrong with the car? I.e Coolant/oil loss, overheating, erratic idling, poor performance, white smoke?

[djdebbied]

No there dont seem to be any other problems with it....thats why i was a bit confused!

[Lew_C]

hmm, very strange then. just depends where the gasket has blown. Could you get a picture? Usually pretty easy to spot

[djdebbied]

A picture of what? The whole engine or where the oil is in the water? Sorry im not great with cars lol

[Lew_C]

A picture of what? The whole engine or where the oil is in the water? Sorry im not great with cars lol

just what in the coolant yep

[rbay1983]

hi, my saxo has had oil (brown) in water for over 10,000 miles its not HG we think its due to a previous blown HG and some oil still remains in system or a previous owner put oil in the water unintentionally!!

[Lew_C]

hi, my saxo has had oil (brown) in water for over 10,000 miles its not HG we think its due to a previous blown HG and some oil still remains in system or a previous owner put oil in the water unintentionally!!

shouldn't be any oil remaining in the coolant as you should always flush the coolant after doing HG mate