Coolant Leakage

[island03gst]

Ok before I get bombed with this, I already searched and no one seems to be having the same problem im having. My car isnt over heating because I have been watching the temp gague religiously. I noticed my coolant was low the other day so i went and bought some. I drove to class today and i popped the hood in the parking lot and the coolant was literally boiling in the resevoir, there was steam coming out of the drip tube as well. I let it settle down and the coolant was low again so I filled it to the fill line and went to class. I came back and popped the hood and the entire resevoir was bone dry and the coolant was all over the ground.

I don't think coolant is supposed to be boiling in the resevoir but is that normal? If not what do you think is causing it? I'm pretty sure the bottle melted or something and thats how its draining out of there because everything under the bottle is covered in coolant.

 

[ddavisaf]

Is your fan coming on?

 

[TotalEclipse112]

If the fan is coning on and its not overheating (yet) I know what it is. I had the same thing when I got my car back from Germany. The temp gauge moves just a tiny bit up not to get alarmed about, then one day you find a puddle of coolant under the car. Its a slight head gasket leak, that will get to the point of overheating. If you do a compression test it will pass, let it sit and idle for an hour and nothing will happen, but once a load is placed on the motor the leak will open up. It will overpressurize the cooling system and force it all out the overflow bottle. Don't mean to jump to conclusions but it sounds like what I had happen to me.

 

[island03gst]

thanks for the input. It sounds like whats happening to me. I'm gonna take it to a mechanic to get it checked out in an hour and see if they can tell what the problem is, ill post a follow up later if i can even get back to my house

 

[island03gst]

the culprit was that there was air in the cooling system because of the tube i fixed yesterday The mechanic let the car cool down, put a funnel in the radiator top and filled it with coolant, left that there and let the engine run and all the bubbles came right out...learn something new everyday, thats the dsm way

 

[TotalEclipse112]

Glad to hear it was a simple fix.