Help! I cant figure out whats wrong?
#1
Help! I cant figure out whats wrong?
Today i was driving to get new tires and everything was fine. As i pull into the bay the tech says your car is leaking coolant bad. So i look under to find almost all my coolant pouring out from the bottom of my car. (i dont have the skid plate on the bottom) I lift the hood trying to see where its coming from and all i see is water boiling/bubbling inside the reservoir but nothing else. So i drive my car home (less than 2 miles) watching the temp gauge as it stays at normal temp with no issues. I get home and refill my reserviour which was empty and start her back up to figure out where the leak was coming from but nothing. The car wont leak anymore, so i drive around town to see if it warms up and the temp gauge begins to fluctuate a little, which made sense because i probably have air in the system. I didnt bleed it. but my question is what the heck would cause this? im reading all kinds of threads about blown head gaskets causing this and its making me nervous as my car has only 91k miles and has never had signs of overheating...Thanks
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#6
Caps do go bad. If your cap isn't holding pressure consistently, then it will allow a lower boiling temp and hence, boil over; which flows into the overflow reservoir until it eventually overflows from there.Just to ease your mind, look at your oil on the dipstick, is it milky or frothy or have any white in it? Next look at your coolant in the radiator (when it's cold), is there frothy, milky goo in there? Any of those would be a sign of mixing coolant and oil (ie bad head gasket). Also, if your HG was bad, you'd quite possibly be throwing a misfire code too. The best way to cover you butt 100% is to have the cooling system pressure tested.
#7
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#10
I dont see how these can go bad when its just a cap? I am coming up on 45k for my cap amd so far pretty good.
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It's not JUST a cap though. It's essentially a calibrated, spring loaded, pressure relief valve. They do occasionally go bad, and they can wear out over time. If they don't hold enough pressure, your system will boil over at a lower temperature than it should (remember the ideal gas law from chemistry/thermodynamics? PV=nRT ).
Last edited by vqsmile; 05-13-2012 at 03:39 AM. Reason: sp