2001 santa fe....odd issue...to say the least
 

ok bear with me. i bought this '01 santa fe v6 4wd 2.7litre, with 196k miles. for my wife yesterday. it was wrecked (left/right fenders, right front door), but was a driver (at the auction) and it runs good, no misses or anything, and shifts fine. after i paid and they pulled it out, i checked the fluids before we drove home (just my standard practice). the radiator had OIL in it. now mind you i don't mean...milkshake oil, i mean thick, black, unmixed with coolant, OIL. the dip stick was...barely showing anything, just a dab on the bottom of it.

so i had it towed home (auction place wouldn't have cared...they stand behind thier as-is where-is policy quite firmly). today i tore the front of it off...pulled the top radiator hose, green coolant flowed out (little traces of oil, but not like it was mixed in with it...), so i pulled the bottom hose, again green with little to no traces of oil.

my thought now went from blown headgasket (yet the oil is so dark and thick it didn't make sense to me still), to...someone (either the moronic auction staff or a crappy bidder trying to get it cheaper), may have put some oil in the radiator filler or "topped it off" with oil (but why old dirty oil??).

any thoughts? i guess my next step is to put the engine parts back together, fill it with oil and flush out the radiator thoroughly, hook it all back up, flush the cooling syste just in case, and then fill it and let it warm up and see what happens.

i guess my main question is...what are the common faults with these?

Never heard of that problem before. I think your theory is correct. I'd put it back together with clean fluids and drive it a day or 2 and check again.

yeah back in the day i was a certified mechanic and i've never seen thick black...pure oil before, but who knows...odd things happen sometimes. found out long ago that i actually enjoy doing body work, i HATE doing mechanical work now. i'd rather scrap this thing than do headgaskets but my wife is laying the guilt trip on me...damn women.

Old trick, pour a little used oil in the radiator to silence a noisy water pump to sell a vehicle. If someone notices, they assume it's head gasket seepage and moves on. New oil would raise suspicion. Let us know if you find Quaker oats on the tranny dipstick.

tranny fluid is good. and the oil didn't mix with the coolant. why not just change a waterpump? i hate lazy people.

I think greedy is a better descriptor.

worthless would also cover it quite well.... but i'll get some water and oil in it today and see if it was someone being a D-bag or...if it's just junk.

put around 120 miles on it yesterday and theres no overheating, no smoke from the exhaust, oil is clean, rad was to hot to open though. i'm expect a little residual oil from what was already still there but we'll see.