2008 Lincoln MKX issues

[daniell]

HI Everyone,

I was driving my Lincoln and noticed no heat was coming out only cold air coming up. looked at temperature gauge it from cold to max in 3-4 mins still no heat blowing out. Vehicle lost power we pulled over. No sign of over heating (visible sign) however there was Coolant in the engine oil. I've had a few ppl look at it they think I've blown a head gasket or its the coolers. Mechanics are telling me just to do a engine swap. Thoughts?? I had a compression test done, only thing they came back with was do engine swap since there is coolant in the engine oil. little frustrated when ppl can't tell me exactly what's wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[driller]

Welcome!

Sorry to hear of your misfortune but it sounds like no one wants to bother with diagnosis when they expect the outcome. Coolant in the engine oil is never an 'easy fix' so their advice may be well intended.

Still the same, there should be diagnostic procedures to determine the fault. It is quite likely a compression test would isolate the location to a particular cylinder but a leak down test may prove to be a better test of the head gaskets. Likewise, a coolant pressure test would give an indication of the extent of the failure as well.

If the initial perception of the tech is that the coolant has so contaminated the engine oil to the point of requiring extensive repair costs, they may very well choose not to do further diagnostics realizing the inevitable outcome. It makes no sense to repair the vehicle only to have the engine fail later.

All that said, it doesn't necessarily have to be an overly expensive proposition to replace the engine. Good used engines should be available or you could even look into a remanufactured engine. Much of the cost will be the labor to R&R the engine anyways.

 

[billcu]

Does that engine have an oil cooler? It's a stretch, but I've seen a failed oil cooler mix the fluids too.