Hi

I am new around here.

I have a FL2 TD4 with 35000Km on the clock and entirely happy with it. last week I notice a puddle of oil on the drive way. The leak came from of all places, the radiator expansion tank. sent it in to dealer and upon opening up the cap, found oil, black oil in the expansion tank, full of it!. no it is not a sludge associated with a blown water gasket or a crack cyclinder or something.

initial assessment is that there is a leak in the oil cooler.

anyone experience this before? in my 30 yeare of motoring it is the first time for me!

Very odd - is there any water in the oil? If there is you might see some 'mayo' in the oil filler cap Cheers,
Raz
FL1 TD4 GS Auto 2001 Silver
FL2 TD4 Auto 2007 Black
FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2012 Fuji White

Nope, no "mayo" oil is as vicious as what i got fro the dipstick . no sign of water

funny thing is the car was driving the same. no loss of power. temperature gauge is norm

Are you sure nobody has topped up the oil in the wrong filler hole? To my knowledge the oil cooler does not go through the rad like on the old TDi Discos. John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

That is one of the possibilities, but the car was under my care all this while. but honestly I have no way of knowing when the oil entered the radiator. I only realise it when the leak started.

could be either head gasket or oil cooler leaking oil into the coolant,are you loosing water having to top it up a lot and does the oil level on the dipstick getting higher if so you will need to gararge vehicle for proper diagnosis  rainy-city
xs

JST wrote:

Are you sure nobody has topped up the oil in the wrong filler hole? To my knowledge the oil cooler does not go through the rad like on the old TDi Discos.

sounds like an over enthusiastic 14 year old son ( like I once was with my Dad's Ford Zephyr !!)

Iain

Was losing some oil which was about the amount that leaked out
The radiator was full of oil not a trace of water/coolant

Andrew you need to take your car to the garage to have them test it to see if there are any issues with the cooling system they should be able to do a cooling system pressure check to see if there is any problems with the head gasket this is a simple task they just connect a device to the header tank and pump pressure into the system come back approx 2hrs later if the pressure on the gauge is the same then the head gasket is ok and i would then check other ways oil can get into the cooling system.if there is a significant drop in pressure then it needs investigation by the garage to see where the fault is

stewart rainy-city
xs

Oil will always settle at the upper most point in its travels around your cooling system if it is indeed leaking into it from somewhere. That would logically be the filler tank. The only time I have heard of this was with head gasket failure but it usually isn’t long before the engine breaks following that so I would get it checked out asap. Sorry I can’t tell you any more than that! 57 HSE AUTO with H.I.D's - Grey with Black leather. (H.S.E. Heightadjustable Seats Extra )
My Aviation website - UKHelicopterPilot.com

The LR Dealer has confirmed that it is the oil cooler and will replace it under warranty. To think that they need to flush the entire cooling system. they are also bambloozed by the whole thing .

maybe its time to trade up for that Evoque???

BTW I am from Malaysia.

i though it may be that. its not very common fault but with the engine running ok it was the only thing left  rainy-city
xs

l had same problem with an audi peyrol engine,oil in coolant and thought the worse,took it my local garage who cleverly diagnosed oil cooler,new cooler,flush system and about seventy quid later all good,and a very relieved customer

Could you tell us what was the final result? Has the service found out what was causing the problem?

if it was head gasket or a crack in cylinder i would expect water in the oil too, hope it a nice simple fix for you.