Coolant in oil

Hello all, I’m new to the Subaru world. I bought a 2006 Legacy GT wagon for my girlfriend 8 months ago. The other day she was driving it and it started driving very sluggishly. She took it to a shop and they said she needed to change the oil. The next day, she was driving it and it started doing it again and started smoking under the hood. She took it to another shop and they said she needed a radiator. I topped off the coolant, changes the oil and change the air filter. It ran great but the turbo was making excessive noise on deceleration. The next day she was driving and it started losing power again and smoking. When I started it, the turbo sounded like it was about to blow apart and it must have pressurized the crankcase because it blew the dipstick up a few inches and blew oil all over the motor. I took the turbo off and has it rebuilt. My question is, is there anyway for coolant to get into the oil besides a blown head gasket. My girlfriend said it never showed it was running hot on the temp gauge and the oil was fine when I changed it and the coolant looked fine also. When I pulled the turbo it was full of oil that looked like chocolate milk so I know it had coolant in it. The guy at the turbo shop said there’s no way that coolant could have leaked from the turbo and mixed with the oil. Head gaskets seem to be the only culprit I can think of but would love to know everyone’s opinion before I dig into changing the gaskets.

If the turbo was bad enough, it being water cooled, yes coolant may have gotten into the oil from a bad turbo.

 

We need to know more about what was wrong with the turbo ?

 

Normally when the turbo goes in these cars, it puts metal into the oil system, which in turn take out the bearings.

 

Also coolant is not good for the bearing also.

 

You may want to start saving for a new short block. We put a ej257 in these cars.

 

Oh, welcome to the forum. Here's the service manual for you.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ilh/vacation/

There is no way for the turbo to mix oil and water (unless there is a very large crack in the center bearing support housing, of which I've only ever seen one like this). The water jacket completely surrounds all of the oil passages, but the walls are thick.

 

You have bad headgasket(s).

So I just drained the oil to pull the motor to do the head gaskets and the oil did not have any coolant in it. I’m thinking maybe the oil line screens are clogged and that’s why the turbo failed and it had to have broken the coolant passage. I only found milky oil in the turbo itself. If the oil screen are still in place, do I clean and reinstall them or just leave them out completely?

If you have the second one I've ever seen with a cracked housing, then it's slightly possible, but if you do, it would have gone into the crankcase through the turbo drain tube and throughout the engine. Post up a couple of photos-I would like to see exactly what you see.

 

I've done more than 300 turbos-probably 275 of them being IHI VF series turbos and have only ever seen a cracked housing once before. The one I received had been run empty of coolant and had been so hot it actually slightly melted the journal bearings. He noticed the entire turbo glowing red and of course, dumped coolant into it and pop goes the weasel.

Leave both those banjo filters out.

 

use good oil and have Blackstone Labs do a oil sample and go from there.

 

I use Amsoil 5w-40 European Classic and there filter and do 7000 miles oil changes after Blackstone told me, at 7000 miles to leave the oil in there and send them another sample in 2000 miles. That was 110,000 trouble free miles ago.