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I spoke too soon. A leak?

crysalis

crysalis

New member
Of course, right after I post about how well my car has been running for its mileage, she shows me otherwise. Started smelling that sweet smell of burning coolant yesterday. I got home and didn't see any leaks or anything, so passed it off as the rest of the coolant burning off in the heat we've been having (90 degrees!) from when I spilled coolant during a flush.

I get about 5 minutes away from work this morning, getting off the highway, and notice my temp gauge slowly rise all the way to just below the red. I jacked up my heat and got nothing but cold air. Luckily I was only a 1/4 mile to the parking garage. I park the car, go to work for a few hours. After I was done, I filled the radiator with about 60oz of bottled water, start up and head home. Heat was working great, temps stayed normal. Car drove fine.

Got home and inspected a bit more. Found a small puddle of coolant deep in between the sc snout and the radiator. I can't think of what this could be from. I checked the nearby hoses and the (visible) coolant elbow and they were all dry. Water pump doesn't seem to be wet either. Any ideas where the leak could be from before I take it apart? I have a feeling it might be the second coolant elbow, but I'm not sure.

 


I'd bet money on it being a coolant elbow, they're pretty difficult to inspect properly without pulling the alternator and the tensioner.
It's probably had a slow leak for a while, my 06 showed all the same symptoms and could not be seen from opening the hood and looking.
The elbow finally blew out the other day and left me on the side of the road.
It's a quick and cheap job to swap them out for new ones.
 
I had a feeling it was probably the stinking elbows. I changed them last summer on the side of I-90 in the middle of a thunderstorm.
 
Sucks. I'll get metal ones this time. At least I've done it before so I know what I'm in for. Hopefully this is the last time.
 


Yea I just had my elbows changed before I found out the issues with them and that I could get metal ones! Sucks but now I know if it happens again but to my main point I had the oil changed and the guy tells me my water pump was leaking so I took it to my mechanic and he said it was the elbows that's why I don't trust 90% of people out there cause I would have gotten my water pump changed for no reason wasted money and still had the problem if I was a woman.. No offense to women but they try to get over on most of you guys!
 
Changed them out this morning with metal ones. So far so good. One of them was cracked instead the hole, so I imagine that was the cause, unless of course I cracked it will removing it. Metal ones fit right in!
 
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