Oil in coolant/dealer wants replace turbo heater core or trad e for new car

[Perry, Chris (EDS)]

This happened to me on my 85 4k.  I replaced the oil cooler, drained as much
of the chocolate pudding (that is what it looked like) out as I could,
filled with  warm water, let it run, drained, repeat, drained, repeat....
Did that 4 or five times, drove it for a week, did it another 5 times, drove
for a week, did it again, filled with Antifreeze and it has been running
fine ever since (3 years).  The car is now owned by a neighbor of my
father-in-law and she says the heater works awesome (previously drove an
early 60's beetle).

It will take some time and many flushings but it will come out.  HOWEVER, I
don't know what affect it will have on your Turbo, the rest I wouldn't be
concerned about.

HTH, 
Chris Perry

-----Original Message-----
From: James N. Friedman [mailto:friedman at georgetown.edu]


97 A4 Quattro manual 1.8T 83k miles USA (Maryland)

 Oil got into the coolant. Apparently a lot of it.
 The dealer is saying what's in the coolant system is so thick it won't
drain,
and flushing it won't fix it.

 They say that what's required is to replace the oil cooler (they think that
is
where the leak was) the turbo, the heater core, the
 radiator, coolant bottle and all the hoses.

 I don't have a precise estimate yet, but it sounds like I'm looking at a
decision to spend something around 5 - 6
thousand dollars on a not-quite 4 year old car with 83K miles vs. whatever I
can
work out with the dealership to trade it on a 2001  A4 Quattro 1.8T.

 Anybody have experience with this sort of problem?

----------------------------------------
Jim Friedman