when i bought my jeep a few months back, the coolant was real dirty. ive drained it and re filled it 4 times already and its still turns murky brown after a short drive. i can see a little of what looks like oil in it, but not sure if its oil or not.

any ideas?

oil is not milky at all, so im not thinking its a head gasket.

 

Did you flush it? If you just drained it and refilled it the engine still had old coolant in it.

As far as if your worried about the head gasket, low compression is a big sign of a bad one (but can also be a sign of other problems). A compression test is fairly simple and the tester is about $20.

Also the brown color is probably rust, normal to have some especially in older vehicles. But if its a lot go ahead and do the flush.

 

All I've done is emptied the resivoir, the liquid in the hose was still green.

It seems like it's disappearing somewhere because about 4 days after the last flushing it's halfway full with brown water.

It might be rust.... But it's a 2001 and lived most of it's life in georgia. I'll look into a full flush soon though, thanks for the help

 

My 97 is the same way. Iv flushed it and ran it with water. refilled. its still brown. Runs great and its been this way for the 30,000 miles Iv put on it..

 

Thats odd...I'd definetly get a full flush done if your not going to do it yourself. If you are then take out the radiator hoses and drain it all out then blast the block and radiator with the hose. I completely re-did my cooling system including hoses, water pump, t-stat and housing and there was alot of caked in nasty brown crap in the block and in the heater core. Flushed it twice with the hose and it runs clear. Give it a shot if your doing it yourself.

 

You need to have someone do a flush on the cooling system. I would also check and see if the head is cracked in half, you can do this by putting the cooling system under pressure and looking down through the fill hole in the valve cover. Some times you can see coolant seeping out of a crack in the casting. Most of the time it is between the rocker arm towers.

At the very leaste I would replace the water pump and have a shop do a flush on the cooling system 2-3 times or until the coolant is green again. I would flush the heater core seprate several times.