3.0d 2006 E53 Oil in radiator scam... but what's still wrong???

[firefox73]

Hi all,

Really pulling my hair out at this and keen to hear your inputs. I appreciate that this is a tale of woe and reasonably lengthy but it may draw attention for others to include the scam in my description.

So my car has been specialist serviced throughout, on time and no expense spared. In the last 12 months, it's had over £4500 spent on it and been in and out of a number of garages with intermittent faults, which have had many many parts replaced, trying to rectify the electrical faults together with a transmission issue. Anyway, it finally had a clean bill of health. I advertised it on AutoTrader know that the car was in tip-top condition.

As soon as the advert came out, I got a number of calls and a foreign-accented man with poor English wanted to view the car as soon as possible. He asked whether I'd accept a price knocking 10% off the original asking price as he was driving some distance. I said I'd consider it but the car was well priced in the first place and I'd had a reasonable amount of interest already.

So he turned up with his mate who he said was a mechanic. They were all over the car, no do you mind opening her the bonnet or can I start it up, just straight in. He asked to see the paperwork which I had in the boot and while I was with him his mate the engineer was in the bonnet area.

They started it up and revved it hard and immediately complained about the smoke. Which I ignored as it had just started up. He then took it for a 200m drive and from the get-go was complaining about smoke. He floored the car, which was stone cold having not been run in a week. When he returned getting animated about the smoke, his mechanic said that the smoke was more than likely a cracked cylinder or best case a head gasket, either way the car's value was in parts only. He then proceeded to undo the radiator reservoir cap and dip and showed how there was oil in it from the problem. I was gobsmacked, the car had been in 3 garages over the last 1000 miles and although they had all thoroughly examined it, no one had pointed this out, so I knew something was odd. Combined with the insistence that the car was smoking, when it was just the usual small amount of initial smoke from start-up. They were insistent that I should sell it to them for a fraction of the advertised price to them today for cash.

Smelling a rat, I apologised for their wasted journey and declined. I then reviewed the CCTV footage and sure enough, it's clear that they distracted me with the paperwork query, while the other guy poured a liquid into my radiator which was squirted in within about half a second.

Armed with this information, it was a relief that the car wasn't scrap value only and that although having had a scam pulled, I had ultimately avoided the scam desired result but now had a problem with thick black oil in the radiator reservoir which would look really bad to other buyers.

I got the car transported to a Halfords who said that they could flush it as many times as necessary to get rid of the oil. I gave them some Wynns Radiator flush as well to help. They flushed it with the Wynns and 3 further water flushes. On collection, they said that they got rid of most of it but can't completely get rid of all the residue black surface oil in the radiator reservoir. After driving the car 0.5 miles, I pulled over where I could find something to dip in the radiator to check quality. What I found was that the radiator coolant level was at the bottom and there was still really thick oil evident. I turned around and went straight back to Halfords. They said that the water just needed topping up and got a watering can. I said that I was concerned whether the job had been done properly as it's still so black. They showed me the vessel that they had done the flushing into and it was about 25 litres of what looked like black household radiator water. They said that they use a pressurised flushing system, so don't need to bleed the system but there may have been a small airlock which is why the level was low. They were confident that there was no problem with the car.

Not impressed but satisfied that it must be driveable I took it home. I took the attached photo of the reservoir and a stick that I used to dip into the reservoir after the flushing. To be fair, prior to the flushing the stick came out as thick black, whereas after flushing it's got areas where the oil hasn't stuck. Meanwhile, both the coolant and the engine oil caps have never shown any signs of emulsification. I then contacted a garage that came highly recommended and got the car transported to them. They've carried out their investigation and are slightly concerned. They said that if the car has been flushed you would not expect to have such a large quantity of really dark oil in the reservoir. They have a couple of recommendations but worryingly, none are 100% certain to fix the problem. These are:

1) Take all the coolant components off and thoroughly clean them as best as possible, reassemble and apply coolant and hope.
2) As 1. but replace the coolant reservoir as this is going to be difficult to mask that there had been black oil in it and may put buyers off.
3) As 2. but replace the oil cooler (it's an automatic car).

These works range in price up to over £500. Having had an open cheque book last time, which ran into thousands of £'s, it's a case of once bitten, twice shy when a garage says that they aren't sure whether it'll cure the problem. The current garage said unfortunately the oil cooler is a one-pipe variant which with a two-pipe cooler they could have tested easier, whereas with this they can't tell whether it is working correctly or not. I'm thinking of asking the garage to check the ATF reservoir but typically this wouldn't be this jet black colour unless this blackness is the remnants that the scammers have left.

Thank you for reading this far. I'd very much appreciate your wisdom as to what else can be done to prove/disprove possible causes and possibly wasting good money after bad. It could be a genuine coincidental problem or could all simply be leftovers from the toerags that tried to pull a fast one.

[X5Sport]

Good catch, and not the first time this has appeared on the Forum.

Usually the only way to clear oil is with a detergent, and a radiator flush doesn’t do that. Oil will spread a very long way - as you have discovered - with the high rpm used by the toe rags making certain of that. The suggestion of cleaning the entire cooling system is valid - and a pain - but should get any oil out. It might takes some time though and even a small amount remaining in the engine galleries will eventually reappear.

I thought the gearbox oil cooler circuit does not cross with the engine oil and is a different colour (not black) so I would be surprised of any crossover into the water from that side. Changing that sounds like a wallet emptying exercise in futility! Likewise with the ATF. Wrong colour and no crossover with the engine oil.

Keep a record of the scam and if you have any of their details inform the Police as well. There might be as a minimum a criminal damage case.

Utter bastids

[Alan Gunn]

They want reporting to the police.
Take a copy of the video with you to the police.
Also can you see them clearly on the video if so get it put on social networks for the rest of the world to se.
It's not a new thing happened many times but not heard of it for some time now but scum like them make a living out of doing it.

[Leslie]

Thought I wrote a reply yesterday but forum ate it

Definitely report it with the cctv to identify them ,not the first time and wont be the last this has happen with that pair and a very nasty experience for you ..

[MrSweetE90]

Absolute vile pieces of S**t! Having read your situation I wish after they complained so much about the car you just said "Ahh well you can walk instead" and literally boot them out so the fat trollop bounced and rolled a couple of times to standstill.

But realistically speaking it's happened now, and if anything I'd take it as a learning curve for any future sales.

What doesn't make quite sense to me is, even if they did stick that oily substance into your radiator, it wouldn't smoke. Usually the scam from what I've read consists of two things, oil in coolant to "theoretically" prove potential head gasket failure, but that's combined with them sticking oil up the exhaust or something that will smoke once hot to again make a realistic head gasket failure scenario. That way if they do get the car it's quite simply a good coolant flush and the oil will eventually burn off itself.

Oh and for crying out loud don't go to Halfords, I'd be paranoid letting them change a bulb lol.