there is engine oil in my e46 radiator but there is no water in the engine or my dip stick. flushed once but after three weeks the oil is back. pls help me on this.

50

Asked by kugan7707 Oct 07, 2014 at 02:37 AM about the 2002 BMW 3 Series 320i Sedan RWD

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

14 Answers

1,335

I haven't worked on a bmw in a few years. Does it have an oil cooler built into the radiator? How do you know that it's oil? When you were checking your oil for water was oil level low? Did u overheat the engine lately. Is it a stick or auto trans? Plz answer the questions the best u can.

11 people found this helpful.
50

there is no oil cooler in the radiator. very clearly engine oil. oil level normal. no overheating.

5 people found this helpful.
1,335

Is it alot of oil that u r seeing? If it was your engine oil getting into the radiator the oil level wouldn't still be full. Engine oil doesn't expand when its hot like automatic tranny fliud does. It's 7am here in FL. and I'v been up all night the last two days w/3-4 hrs of sleep in between. Let me sleep on it a bit and see what I can come up with.

10 people found this helpful.
1,335

Kugan google 2002bmwm3e46fluidcontaminationinradiator when it pops scroll down and there looks to be others with your issue. I don't have time right now to find exactly what you needed. So go check it out if you get this message before I get back later.I hope It's useful and not a deadend.

2 people found this helpful.
50

Same problem! Oil in rad but using engine oil would this be a split oil cooler ? Tony

5 people found this helpful.
100

The problem is the oil selector under the intake plastic mainfold. It's worn out. Change it and flush the radiator. Then the problem is solved

10 people found this helpful.
110

Guru96W7Y I have oil in my coolant also but no water in my oil. Call you provide a better description of the "oil selector" that you stated has failed in your previous answer?

11 people found this helpful.
190

I think some e46 I have transmission oil coolers that fail in some way to make this happen .it may look like oil but it could be trans fluid ...

7 people found this helpful.
190

If it's oil in water and not water in oil it's either trans cooler or oil filter housing gasket

12 people found this helpful.
10

It's actually a problem with the oil cooler. Its mixing transmission fluid with radiator coolant. Oil cooler is just down the radiator. Have it changed.

1 people found this helpful.
10

Hi its not engine oil its ATF mixing with the rediator water...when you drain your gearbox ull see the oil have a pink colour...replace the oil cooler

1 people found this helpful.
80

Hi there, I got the same problem, I got bmw e46 318 n42, I was recently doing the service, so I changed oil filter and oil, when I started the car I seewater in mixing in the engine and and there was no over heating, the engine wasn' teven get warm I changed the oil cooler and stopped in drove the Car after 2 Days feel the missing in the engine and next day I found the water mixed in the radiator, I changed again the iol cooler but the oil still coming in the radiator more; please help me what is it?

8 people found this helpful.
20

Hi I'm a bmw tech. And 318 have the head gasket combined with rubber head gasket at the very front of the engine where the chain pass by. Very common you need to replace head gasket every 60 to 80 thousand miles 770 881 5577.

2 people found this helpful.
20

Hi im driving e46 when i open the radiator i see oil mixed with water but when i check the dipstick the oil is still fine pls help what cost this?

2 people found this helpful.

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