Thanks for the responses.

This is not a stain. It's a lump o' crud, actually many lumps o' crud at the
oil cooler. Since the oil cooler is just a block of something (looks like
aluminum), there isn't anything to specifically top off.

Also, the crud is at both the inlet and outlet locations, suggesting to me
that it is the nature of the thing to leak. If not, I would have expected
maybe one or the other would be affected, but not both.

Perhaps it has something to do with the aluminum interface. A casual check
around the rest of the engine compartment did not reveal similar gatherings
of the crud.

Another possibility may have to do with changing the oil filter. The car was
serviced by Audi for the first 50K miles of free service. Now that it's
beyond the magic mark, I do the stuff myself. The first time I changed the
oil filter, it was quite a job. Apparently, some gorilla socked it down real
good and I had to contort it quite a bit before it broke free. The stress
may have been transferred to the cooler lines and caused some weeping of the
coolant. Hard to tell.

That problem is cured by tightening the oil filter hand tight. Doesn't leak
and it doesn't take an impact wrench to get it off.

Another Audi item of note: the dealership consistently overfilled the oil.
I, of course, do not.

Best,

Ken



"Chris Bartram" > wrote in message
...
> daytripper wrote:
> > On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 06:14:24 GMT, "KWS" > wrote:
> >
> >
> >>My 2000 A4 1.8T has pink crud on the oil cooler where the coolant lines
are
> >>connected. Is this stuff hardened coolant? It is present on both the
inlet
> >>and outlet and has been there ever since I bought the car new. The
coolant
> >>level does not appear to be changing.
> >>
> >>Is this normal?
> >
> >
> > It sure sounds like coolant - if you ever notice pink chaff flying about
> > inside your cabin you'll know the heater core has gone to Heaven ;-)
> >
> > I'd expect it's not normal to have coolant stains around the oil cooler,
but
> > might they be the result of sloppy topping-off?
> >
> > /daytripper
> > '00 s4 6spd
> It *does* sound like coolant. Probably the hoses weeped a little at some
> point, and the crud has probably sealed it. As long as the coolant
> doesn't drop I wouldn't worry too much- check for any actual liquid
> leaking though.