Car Help! (Coolant)

[vonn]

A decent shop should be able to pressurize the cooling system by hand and tell you for sure if you have a leak. The tool I have has adapters for most vehicles but a dealer should have the right ones. The leak can be hard to find sometimes but if the pressure goes down you have a leak for sure.

 

[CBus660R]

I'm not a fan of anything made in Korea. It appears after your experience you might be wise to avoid Korean vehicles in the future.

It's not that it's made in Korea, it's that it's a sub compact. Doesn't matter the brand, they all are built very cheaply. The manufacturers don't make any money on sub compacts and cut corners every place they can. If your options are a brand new sub compact or a 3 year old mid size with 50K on the odometer for the same price, the mid size is the better buy.

 

[Maddog 521]

If you're going to buy straight coolant be sure to carry distilled water instead of tap water.

 

[forindooruseonly]

Couple of questions. First, when you removed the radiator cap when cold, was it pressurized? Like did it pop and release air? Second, is it losing coolant while the reservoir remains full? If so it could be a head gasket leak. Sadly, given your situation, this is my first guess.

On these newer cars, as Kencan said, if you overheat them, just slightly, the aluminum heads will warp and turn a water pump problem into a head gasket problem. If the dealership didn't test for a head gasket leak and the car is still eating water, you've got a real problem.

Don't rely on the old white smoke and bubbling antifreeze tests. Actually have a shop check for a problem correctly. If it is a headgasket, you'll want to fix it before it gets worse.

 

[Old Corp]

Some great advice here, much of it learned over the years for me already.
I once had a Volvo wagon with a similar issue. Losing coolant, no apparent leak. No coolant evidence in oil or exhaust.

Local on-his-own Volvo mechanic did a pressurized leak test. Small crack/leak in heater hose, with drips falling on hot exhaust. Not enough to smell, but no evidence of drips on the ground.

Good luck. Be safe.

 

[The Norseman]

Car Coolant

I believe it is the cheap plastic Engine head
gasket. On very high mileage GM cars
they eventually develop small cracks
and coolant leaks and eventually destroys the
Starter.

My daughter had a Grand Am, that I kept filling
with coolant for many months. Well, one evening
it would not start. Had it picked up and taken
to a NAPA. They new immediately what was wrong.

NAPA said showed me the cheap Gasket and the
Metal one to replace it. In all it cost me $2K.
NAPA said they have done so many, that it was
a money maker for them.

Good Luck with your endeavors.

 

[Tom S.]

Hi all! Well I am going to have to take a 1200 mile road trip to Las Vegas because I am PCS'ing (moving to a new military base) and I am having some trouble with my car.

It seems I have a coolant leak (2013 Chevrolet Sonic) and the dealer has been of minimal help. The car overheated a few weeks ago and this was due to very low coolant.

I took it to the dealership and they replaced the water pump, saying they fixed the problem. This was on powertrain warranty so no cost to me, but it seems to still be loosing coolant! Since this I've had to add about 1/3 gallon of coolant.

I do not have time to deal with the stupid dealership again, only a few days left till I leave town and I don't trust them at all anyway. The shop foreman seems to be a clown of some sort, not the first problem I've had with this car and have had to come back to get other issues fixed more than once.

My question is, will it be okay to just carry several gallons of coolant in the trunk and top off as I stop every few hours as needed?

Is it okay to keep unscrewing the cap? I know you have to be careful as the coolant comes surging up in the tank and you have to let it cool off first.

Do I have to purge for air bubbles every time? Seems like I shouldn't need to if there is still plenty of coolant in the tank but again, I'm not sure.

Please help! I'm not a car guy but I know some of you are. Thank you in advance!!

-Jay

PS: This is a terrible automobile and I advise anyone reading this to NEVER purchase a Chevy Sonic. It was priced right and I bought it brand new, and after 60K miles there has been one problem or another almost monthly. I've replaced the oil pressure switch, thermostat, alternator, battery, fuses, relays, the list goes on. Horrible car built cheaply!!

Like a lot of other things, not all dealerships are idiots. You are not obligated to take the vehicle to the dealer you bought it from, any Chevrolet dealer. Look for one with a better reputation.

Coolant levels can decrease for a number of reasons, none of them good. As someone pointed out, if the dealer's mechanic didn't fill the system properly, there could have been air bubbles trapped, resulting in the need to add more fluid. There are inexpensive kits (under $30 IIRC) that will let you pressurize the system with a hand pump and look for leaks, but if the leak is internal to the engine, you won't be able to see them. What you will be able to see though is whether the system holds pressure or not. If it won't hold pressure, you have a leak. If you can't see the leak, from one of the hoses, around the radiator or the heater, you may well have a manifold gasket leak, a cracked head or cracked cylinder block. Cars that you see bellowing large clouds of white smoke have bad leaks, but a small leak in the engine will slowly lose coolant without leaving a cloud. I had an S10 that had the notorious rear intake manifold leak, and it used coolant at a rate of about a gallon every 4 to 6 months. The coolant was burned but the truck didn't smoke and none of it made it into the engine oil.

Given your situation, this is my recommendation: buy a gallon of premixed coolant (no need to dilute with water, and make sure it's Dex-compliant) and a gallon of distilled water. Use the coolant if needed and the water as an emergency back up. When time permits, if the problem persists, find a dealer with a better service department and get it fixed. GM's computer systems are linked so even if you took it to a dealer 1,000 miles away, they can see what the previous dealer did and take it from there.

 

[JayFramer]

Couple of questions. First, when you removed the radiator cap when cold, was it pressurized? Like did it pop and release air? Second, is it losing coolant while the reservoir remains full? If so it could be a head gasket leak. Sadly, given your situation, this is my first guess.

On these newer cars, as Kencan said, if you overheat them, just slightly, the aluminum heads will warp and turn a water pump problem into a head gasket problem. If the dealership didn't test for a head gasket leak and the car is still eating water, you've got a real problem.

Don't rely on the old white smoke and bubbling antifreeze tests. Actually have a shop check for a problem correctly. If it is a headgasket, you'll want to fix it before it gets worse.

Sorry I should have been more specific. I did not remove the radiator cap, just the lid from the reservoir. There is a hiss when I do this to fill the reservoir, even when the car sits overnight.

 

[zonker5]

Have you run it with the heater on for a few minutes? Quite often there is air trapped in the heater and you need to circulate water through it to get rid of all the air.

 

[JayFramer]

Have you run it with the heater on for a few minutes? Quite often there is air trapped in the heater and you need to circulate water through it to get rid of all the air.

No it was cold today so I ran it this morning. I also topped it up yet again before I left...

 

[LVSteve]

Sorry I should have been more specific. I did not remove the radiator cap, just the lid from the reservoir. There is a hiss when I do this to fill the reservoir, even when the car sits overnight.

This implies that the system is remaining pressurized. You may just be getting the last of the air out. My SUV is a bear to bleed properly and the best advice was to drive it for a week or two and keep a close eye on the levels. That seemed to work.

One thing baffled me when researching this kind of thing. Lots of folks were getting pressure checks that were good, but they were still losing coolant. Of course, the pressure checks were done with the engine cold so that opens up the likelihood of a leak that it only present when the motor is hot.

Safe travels, and carry extra coolant.

One thing to add, the sealed cooling systems on modern cars work rather differently to what I was used to with 1980s motors. What we used to call the "expansion tank" is now part of the pressurized system, and coolant can move freely between the radiator and this tank. The tank has a pressure cap that in extremis will release and probably dump coolant in the street. The radiator has it's own cap set at a higher pressure than the tank cap. I think it is there to prevent a cooling system blow-up if the tank cap fails and won't open.

 

[rwsmith]

Be really careful...

I had repairs made to the cooling system and the warped heads after a bad overheat. I thought I was in the clear, when out of the blue, the same thing happened. I had to junk the car. Keep a really close eye on your temp gauge and stop immediately if the temperature starts going up.

I don't know how compatible with today's cars this is, but you might carry along a can of 'stop leak' if you can't find the leak.

One problem with filling it up when needed is that the radiator really needs to cool down or when the pressure is released, the coolant will flash into steam and lose about half of your coolant. You will need plenty of patience.