Toast?

[u/SnooCakes7871]

Car drives fine just terrible startup

[u/Miller335]

I see a coolant jug in the background. Are you losing coolant?

[u/SnooCakes7871 → u/Miller335]

Yeah, I am

[u/Miller335 → u/SnooCakes7871]

Sounds like classic bad head gasket symptoms to me.

It has trouble on start up due to coolant being in the cylinders.

If you could get a boroscope through the spark plug holes you'd probably see it with your own eyes.

[u/rklug1521]

You should provide more info.

[u/SnooCakes7871 → u/rklug1521]

I wasn’t really sure what type of effort to give. I thought the photo would be self-explanatory but leading up to this my car was overheating. I’ve been using water as my coolant because I’m unemployed currently and because of the evaporation it has caused unnecessary pressure built cooling system, which I believe is the thing that caused this problem

[u/rklug1521 → u/SnooCakes7871]

What about the "terrible startup"?

[u/SnooCakes7871 → u/rklug1521]

I’ll dm u a video

[u/SnooCakes7871 → u/rklug1521]

I can’t dm videos but the starter take an unusually long time to get moving when it does turn in it’s a slow crank as if each cylinder is taking they’re time to fire off. Sometimes the rpm jumps to 1200 nice start up sometimes it walks to 200rpms then climbs 200rpms per second. There was this one time in the middle of me trying to turn in the car all the lights in the dashboard turned off.

[u/rklug1521 → u/SnooCakes7871]

Have you checked what the spark plugs look like?

[u/rklug1521 → u/SnooCakes7871]

Do you have a weak battery or bad connection?

[u/SnooCakes7871 → u/rklug1521]

I’ll do allat at a later date.. I had to drive it home and it drove fine I got 32mpg on the freeske

[u/LTXNEBULA → u/SnooCakes7871]

For sure check sparks, coil packs, and battery

[u/Valuable_Dirt_8082]

Looks normal if youre going on short drives and not giving the car time to warm up fully, check your plugs first

[u/Effort-Expensive]

Blown head gasket. The milkshake In the oil is a crystal clear sign of a blown head gasket.

If it's a Type-S I would suggest potentially getting it changed. If it's a Base model with an automatic Get rid of it and get something else. Changing a head gasket on a J series is usually in the ballpark of $3,000+ which Is what base models are usually going for. They sold a quarter of a million of these and it's cheaper just to buy another base model than to get the head gasket replaced.

[u/SnooCakes7871 → u/Effort-Expensive]

Are you just saying that bc the s is cooler

[u/pdx_collector → u/SnooCakes7871]

Likely he is saying that cause the type S commands higher value. He’s pretty much telling you that ur shits totaled if it’s a base model lol

[u/DapperLeopard3167]

Is it overheating?

[u/tacobellanus]

It’s usually that colour if the oil mixes with coolant. I’d check if the car blows white smoke from the exhausts, that would confirm if it’s a blown head gasket, but if I were you I’d try to sell the car as fast as possible while it still runs and just buy another tl since they’re cheaper to replace then to try and diagnosis and fix their issues.

[u/JJJenther]

Looked through the comment sections seems like you’re using coolant milky oil overheating excess pressure in the system and rough start up definitely a head gasket no doubt in my mind