could this be a bad turbo or HG?

[cardot33]

hey, My 90 Talon TSI AWD is just recovering from some transmission problems and now it seems like it's shifting pretty well after a trans rebuild, ACT clutch, and a couple other things. now I noticed the oil seems very thin, like watered down. I've been losing a lot of coolant and it has to be going somewhere, but the dipstick readings don't seem to have any sort of mix with coolant. if I take the oil fill cap off, that's where I can find some milky oily stuff. the car doesn't have any white smoke while running though. I'll have to do a compression test a little bit later, I have to get a battery charger first.

so what's my problem here? do I have a bad turbo blowing coolant up into the head or something? how can I tell that it's a bad turbo and not the HG? it's pretty odd that the oil is so thin, but only mixed in the head. I got curious and took off the oil filter, none of the oil I found there was mixed, but it was really thinned out.

I could really use some help figuring out what's wrong. I've really lost my faith in this car in the past couple months.

 

[dawid4444]

i think its your HG :/

 

[slowboy101]

Its your head/head gasket if your oil looks milky then you have coolent leaking into it so I would say DONT drive the car till you fix it you can cause alot more damage

 

[KKneipper]

Probably head gasket... Unfortunately, the white smoke and mixture on the dipstick are the only ways of checking that I know of. If its just the under side of the cap showing mixture, then the cap might not be getting a tight seal, or you could have a leaky valve cover gasket (mine was caused by both).

But I would be willing to bet its the head gasket.

Maybe do an oil change and get some thicker oil. I use Quaker State 10W-30 in the summer and Quaker State 5W-30 in the winter.

 

[Shaggy_357]

Another vote for head gasket, you can also check the dipstick for bubbles in the oil. Not a 100% diagnosis, but it will help further prove the theory. Like it was said above, DON'T drive it (very far, at least) and throw a compression tester on it to confirm it before shelling out the money for all the crap that goes into a HG swap. On a side note, unless money is super tight, go ahead and do yourself the favor of picking up a water pump and new belts while you're in there.

 

[cardot33]

well, I was going to do a compression test, but then my 5th starter failed on me. I have no idea how or why, but it's pretty ridiculous. maybe the 4th time using the starter? I've spent way to much money on this thing, I haven't been able to drive it, and the weirdest things just keep breaking and costing me money. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to get rid of this car as-is. the sooner, the better.
thanks for the help anyway guys, this car is just too unreliable to be worth fixing.