Merky Coolant, Low.

Over the past winter if any of you may have read, I had my water pump go out
and had that reserviced [after it dumped quite a bit of coolant I may add].
This winter I had a lot of moisture in my oil, and my oil cap had a weird
jell film that looked like cold grease from burgers or something. Today I
got a new surprise: Low coolant flashing. The engine feels hotter than
normal, but its also hotter than it was a month ago out, so I'll put this
aside.

I opened it up and the coolant was indeed low, about a cup or so. Filled it
to the line. Its a nice brownish color now. I'm quite sure the coolant in it
before was yellow as its the UNIVERSAL that they put in, not the red that my
car had when I purchased it used. Does this mean the headgasket is gone? How
much will this put me back?

Oh well, at least I've replaced just about everything =D

 

Sounds more like wrong coolant.. My mother in law had red coolant in
her car but when someone did an oil change for her they topped off the
coolant with a socalled universal collant. Abot a month later she had
me gas and check her liquid levels. The coolant was low and looked
dirty, I took a white paper towle and dipped it into the coolant and
when I pulled it out it looked like I stuck it into an old waste oil
container.. It looked like what you would see on an oil dipstick when
the oil hadn't been changed for years.. We took the car in and they
thought head gasket bt I thought wrong antifreeze so we had it
completely drain and flushed then replaced the coolant with new.. $100
later but all has been good since!

 

I'll have them do it ASAP. Perhaps at the place they screwed up?

 

Sounds like a head gasket and you are getting a coolant/oil mix based on
your description. Get it tested ASAP to prevent long-term damage.

Bob