So, it's been cold here in Oregon and I realized that I should probably add some antifreeze to my car this evening. Long story short, I grabbed the motor oil instead of the antifreeze out of my trunk, and in the darkness of the parking lot didn't realize what I was doing. Fortunately (I guess) I realized what I had done when i was putting the container back into my trunk, and I haven't started the car since. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to fix it? Thanks in advance.
- Amy
If your car has a seperate overflow tank and that is where you added the oil, then I would remove the hose from it and drain it out. Then flush with detergent. Be aware that draining oil onto the ground may not be environmentally friendly.
Well if your lucky just grab a turkey baster and see if you can draw the oil off the coolant. Being you haven't ran it the oil should still be on the surface.
Oil floats on water so since you have not started it up whatever you put in should still be right on top. Get some 50/50 antifreeze/water and a turkey baster and inject the new anti freeze below the level of the oil that's floating on top and force the oil to "overflow". Other option is to open the drain and drain everything out but whether that works depends on what kind of car you have and where the radiator cap goes, etc, etc.
If I were to be the one to clean this up, I would unbolt the overflow tank, then remove the hose and drain it into a bucket. Then I would take the tank, now completely out of the car and clean it until I couldn't see any remaining oil in it. Rinse it to remove any soap/detergent then put it back in the car and fill with 50/50 mix.
Most overflow tanks I've seen are easy to remove, usually two easy to access bolts or nuts, but if your car has one that is inside the fender or something that may be too troublesome. In that case it might be easier to clean it in place.
The turkey baster (either sucking the oil off the top or forcing it to overflow out the open cap) is a good solution, but how well it works may depend on the shape of the tank in your car. On my car the tank is wide and the cap is over on one side. I would be concerned that the oil floating on the surface away from the cap would be inaccessible or become trapped as to not flow out by adding coolant with such a tank.
Naw, that was just a little thoughtless. To make "idiot" you'd have to, say, put power steering fluid in the brake master cylinder, as I did ca. age 11 0r 12 because when Dad was giving me the chore of keeping the leaky P/S system topped off, he was wrongly assuming that I knew just where it was -- and had his hand on the master cylinder. Then you did the right thing by not driving until you got an answer, which was pretty smart.
First, did you put the stuff right into the radiator or into the expansion tank? The latter is what you do on most modern cars. I'd bet that little if any got sucked into the rest of the system. If you put it into the radiator (or if some got sucked into the radiator after you added it to the reservoir) and then didn't drive the car, it still hasn't gone into the engine proper.
Second, how much -- a whole quart or just a little?
Third -- I'm not sure what exactly it would hurt in trivial amounts. Large amounts might turn into mousse and cavitate the water pump or something, but it's going through metal, same as the motor oil, and maybe some plastics and rubbers that have to operate in an environment where they can and do get oil on the outside of 'em.
Fourth: was it synthetic or regular motor oil? We haven't had a long, violent, inconclusive argument about the relative merits of the two on this group in a long time, so I just thought I'd throw that out there.
"But seriously, folks": How to remove it. You can probably get most of it with a hand pump or turkey baster, as others have mentioned. Oil floats on water. That's why, after a tanker goes up on the rocks, they clean oil off seals and seagulls, not crabs and oysters. Since you sensibly *didn't* run the engine, I'd bet most of it is stil at the top of the reservoir and/or the radiator. As others have mentioned, the reservior is, on many cars, easy enough to remove and dump and flush, after you have removed most of the oil. (In other cars it is well buried and/or integrated with the windshield squirter reservoir.)
I don't think you have to be really agonizingly thorough about this unless you also poured in the packet of salad dressing mix and the radiator is full of those little seeds. Look in the radiator (warning! remove cap only when the thing is cool enough to touch comfortably!) from time to time for a few days just to check your work.
If it's been a few to several years, though, you could also backflush the system using the kit sold for that purpose, and refill it with new coolant and distilled water. Since you didn't mention whether the car as a "honk if you passed p-chem" bumper sticker, I'll spare you the explanation of why you mix antifreeze and water instead of using straight antifreeze. The chart on the back of the jug lets you compare the virtues of various proportions to the expected severity of winters where you live, and the owner's manual tells how much the system holds. A 50:50 mix solves the problem so well for so much of the continental US that most people just go with that. )
One man's opinions, worth what you paid if your ISP is cheap,
--Joe
what about the guy who told his doctor that for all the good those suppositories did he might have well shoved the up his ass
A postscript on the care and feeding of the expansion reservoir: Putting more in there does not put more into the pressurized part of the system (unless that part was running low).[1]
There are advisory "full cold" and "full hot" lines on the reservoir, but what they really do, respectively, is help you make sure the end of the hose is submerged even when the engine is cold, and that you aren't wasting antifreeze by putting so much in that when the engine is hot, some goes out the overflow tube and onto the ground.
If the end of the hose is submerged when cold, the pressurized part of the system is full, and adding more than what those lines suggest will not protect your engine better. The lines also give you a handy reference when monitoring for coolant loss. What *is* important for engine protection (besides mechanical integrity) is that the pressurized portion of the system should be full, with a proportion of antifreeze to water that is in the correct range.[2]
Cheers,
--Joe
[1] If this exercise began because it *was* running low, as shown by an empty reservoir and/or direct inspection after removing the radiator cap from a cold engine, you want to keep an eye on things and find out why: is there a leak somewhere, or do you need a new radiator cap, or...?). [2] Some engines, especially flat ones, are said to care also about the proper bubble-burping procedure after a coolant change.MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.