Mysterious Coolant Goblin !

niz406 · Post by **niz406** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:13 pm

Guys,

This is doing my trolly in.... I'm about read to start pulling my hair out !

My motor is drinking coolant as quickly as a few lietres a day... I am unable to locate a leak, there is no sign of water contamination of the passenger compartment, around or near the heater matrix, the radiator does not have a leak.... there are no visible drips or leakes from the engine bay....

The oil is clean with no mayo contamination....
The Coolant doesnt have any oil in it
The exhaust does not bellow any smoke or steam out of it, only on initial start up due to condensation etc..
There is no loss in power, or not that I've noticed and I drive it every day!

Anyone got any other ideas as to what it could be or what I should be looking for?

chili · Post by **chili** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:06 pm

gasket ? water boiling dry hence no visible signs ?

niz406 · Post by **niz406** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:09 pm

But there would be, white powdery marks somewhere visible as the steam has to escape somewhere... its not visible in the exhaust so I have to rule that out and there is no loss in power, irregular idling etc!

Not sure what else I can do apart from start stripping the coolant system completely and replacing everything.... lol including the head gasket etc..

jameslxdt · Post by **jameslxdt** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:52 pm

ideally you need to pressure test the cooling system,
ive seen once before on a volvo v70 turbo, the cooling system had failed inside the turbo, but was worse when cold so you wouldnt see much steam from the exhaust once it warmed up, but i think the turbo on your car is oil cooled so that probably isnt the problem, could also be the water pump

niz406 · Post by **niz406** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:11 pm

Yeah its booked in for a pressure test this thursday.... waste of time if you ask me I know there is a problem, all there going to tell me is that the system has a leak... well no sh*t but they need to be more specific, and they will need to strip bits off to find that out !

Foxy · Post by **Foxy** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:17 pm

Do you have the undertray still?

Mine drinks coolant and about a litre a month or 2 and the undertray is alway wet. Im guessing Ive a very small leak somewhere...

niz406 · Post by **niz406** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:34 pm

Undertray is dry, no visible leaks ! ! its got me all confused ! think I'm putting it down to head gasket !

jameslxdt · Post by **jameslxdt** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:14 pm

depending on where and how badly the headgasket has gone, you may not have oil in the coolant or mayo in oil, if its consuming as much as you say this wouldnt be long enough for contamination to build up in the cooling system, if the pressure test shows ok get a block test done and if you can find somewhere willing to do it, use an exhaust gas analyser to check for hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide at the expansion tank with the engine running, any sign of hydrocarbons is almost certainly headgasket failure, also do a compression test, if you have one or two lazy pistons and the plugs are quite coverd in crap this is also a sign of the headgasket,
one last thing, if you top it up when its still hot with the engine running, rev the engine, if alot of water is chucked out of the expansion tank with the cap off if you didnt overfill it this could also suggest the headgasket is gone

edit: just done some quick research and the turbo on your car is water cooled, im edging more towards the side of turbo cooling system failure
i just hope its something simple!

niz406 · Post by **niz406** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:40 pm

Cheers James....

Turbo is ok it was off not quite 7 days ago and the car hasn't been pushed at all since being put back together, thinking of going with the headgasket test... will go through your suggestions and see where it gets me, watch this space... Update sometime this week !

Many Thanks