Rep Power: 0

I just bought this cosmetically beautiful 99 Civic EX, automatic with 142K for what I thought was a pretty decent (mom and pop) dealer price, $3600. Very clean looking engine except for what I thought was oil pan gasket leak (pan covered with oil). Car ran great, except a little higher RPM shift than seemed normal (about 3K under normal accelerating).

So I do all the things a man's suppossed to do with this car..3X tranny drain and fill, air filter, tune up, oil change, coolant flush, pcv valve, and valve clearance adjustment.

So after a few days of driving I check the oil and it's down an entire quart! Repeated fills and checks reveal the same pattern (about 1 qt. every 100 miles)...I know the car has a few miles on it, but c'mon!

So after a few almost heart-attacks my mechanic friend says the leak sounds like a rear main seal, since the oil pans are sealed on these specific models, but I should get a leak test (where they put the dye in and use goggles to pinpoint the leak). Today, however, I notice little drops of oil in my coolant reservoir.

This has me baffled, as the car runs beautifully, has no smoke from the tailpipe (except what you'd expect on the colder days), and only a few tiny drops of oil on the ground on my parking spot when I come out in the morning. No visible head or valve cover leaks. The spark plugs looked fine when I did the tune up. Nothing looked abnormal under the valve cover, and the clearances were just barely off. But the car keeps sucking down oil like no tomorrow.

The dealer warranty is the usual useless crap ($500), which the warranty company would probably try to fight anyway, based on my experience. I'd like to take legal action, but I signed this nice piece of paper saying they weren't responsible for anything after I drove the car off the lot.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give on this. I have a feeling ordering a used engine is what I am going to be faced with.

 
Rep Power: 813

unfortunately, this is the problem with "as-is" used cars and exactly why i would never buy one unless they let me drive it a few days before buying (they usually will if there is nothing to hide). sounds like a bad headgasket and if you have no experience with that kind of work, will most likely cost $1000-1500 to replace the gasket and have the head checked, which could also be messed up. if you are losing alot of oil and it is not leaking on the ground, its either being burned or mixing internally with the coolant. for the price of the repair for engine rebuild, i would prolly go for an engine swap instead to completely get rid of the problem and have a better engine in the process. if the rest of the car is in good shape, its worth it. you can get a good 99-00 civic si engine (b-series) for prolly around $1k and maybe $1k for install but those are guesses. could be cheaper. check around ebay or local shops see what they have and what they charge for swaps. for better performance B18A1, B18C, B18C1, and B17A1 are all bolt in engines. for a stock replacement D16Z6 and D16Z7 (what you have now) would both work if you want the same power.

 
Rep Power: 190

I second what was just said, head gasket its going to be oil in the coolant because oil pressure far exceeds coolant pressure so the engine will be ok, no major damage just run a good degreaser through the cooling system, a headgasket is not hard to do on these cars and if you have a mechanic buddy he can knock it out in 8 hours no problem. A rear main seal will leak on the passenger side, a front main seal drivers side, it could also be a oil pressure sensor leak or oil pan gasket leak, there is no way to tell withough checking it out. You would lose a good bit of oil fairly quickly if the head gasket is shot, the reason it does not drop to fast is that coolant pressure will slow it down somewhat. My advice try to find a cheap low mileage engine on kijiji if your in canada or whatever site works for the US. If your canadian, great parts are easy to find and usually cheap. I got a 4-2-1 megan header for $50 off kijiji here and a si head already machined and ready to go for $100. Its not unheard of to blow a headgasket for that low of mileage (if its in kms) but it is rare for civics.

 
Rep Power: 0

Thanks for the advice, gearbox and dan...

I think I'm just gonna get a whole new engine..between head gasket, other leaking seals, and the fact that the previous owner was probably driving this around with low oil for extended periods of time, it will probably save me more heartache to just get it over with and swap out the whole thing...thanks again...

 
Rep Power: 190

If you want to swap there are ton of options I would opt for a higher hp swap if your going to go through the trouble. si engine is an easy swap for the car.

 
Rep Power: 0

I to am having the same problem with my 99 d16y8 , I just did the head gasket three weeks ago and it runs great other than the oil in my cooling system reservoir mine is not if you drops do all the water in the reservoir is oil mixed in with the coolant. I noticed this two days ago when I was going to work my car heater would not work I automatically assume that it was something with the coolant I checked it and that’s when I saw there was oil mixed in with my coolant. I noticed in a previous post that possibly could be a rear main seal? Or is it really the head gasket again if you could please help me with this situation and let me know what I can do to fix this.