Coolant in engine oil

[Japveesix]

Hi folks,

I'm obviously a bit tired this morning and have just gone to top up my engine oil (2.0 tfsi Octavia) and have instead put a smidge, literally a small glug of coolant in by mistake


I'm supposed to be driving the car very shortly on a 3 hour round trip. Can anyone give me a honest opinion of whether I'd be totally me stupid to drive it now and does it really need an immediate and full oil change?

bks....

[anonymous-user]

You’ve fked it. Do not drive. Flush oil. Replace.

[SteveR1979]

Yes, stupid to drive it

Flush it and refill

[jeremyh1]

like steve and funk said change the oil now

I did the same on my Daughters 208 dont know why either it was a Sunday afternoon and Halfords were open so I had to sort it out quick
It will never happen to you until it happens to you

[Japveesix]

Fair enough, that's pretty much what I assumed. bks. Long slow journey in a picanto it is then...

Thanks for the quick responses.

[GreenV8S]

I'll take a contrary view here. It's completely normal to have water in the oil.

It is continually condensing out of the blowby gases in the crank case while the engine is cool, and getting boiled off and blown out with the breather gases when the engine is good and hot.

In extreme cases where an engine is used mainly for short trips and never given a good run you could easily have half a pint in there.

If you're talking about a few CC of coolant added as a one-off, it will make no difference whatsoever.

[rigga]

If it's as small as you suggest , a good long run to get the oil as hot as possible, will burn off the coolant, but again it all depends on actually how much of a glug you added.

[donkmeister]

The good thing about draining it before starting it is that it won't have emulsified with the oil and is probably sat in the bottom of the sump. You might even get away with a partial drain. As soon as it's had a good whizz up through the engine then you'll have mayo/chocolate shake to get flushed out of the galleries. The one time I had HGF I only lost 100ml of coolant into the oil system but it took a couple of oil changes until the oil was clear again.

I'd echo the above that a singular glug followed by an oil change in a couple of hundred miles if there is still obvious moisture in the oil PROBABLY won't hurt anything as people have been known to drive with a leaky head gasket for a good while before noticing, however I doubt you'll find any engine engineer or mechanic who would recommend it.

[rallye101]

Webuyanycar.co.uk

[richhead]

GreenV8S said:

I'll take a contrary view here. It's completely normal to have water in the oil.

It is continually condensing out of the blowby gases in the crank case while the engine is cool, and getting boiled off and blown out with the breather gases when the engine is good and hot.

In extreme cases where an engine is used mainly for short trips and never given a good run you could easily have half a pint in there.

If you're talking about a few CC of coolant added as a one-off, it will make no difference whatsoever.

This.
If it was a very small amount, then dont worry, a long drive will get rid of it

[PaulKemp]

It’s a bit late but for future reference oil floats on water, give it 30 mins (or a bit more if you can) then open sump plug let water out until you see pure oil then put sump plug back in and top up with oil. Any remaining moisture will evaporate and get sucked out the breathers. I would of course flush out, replace oil and filter at the earliest opportunity.