jteef
12-28-2010, 08:45 PM
My car is releasing a lot of steam from the little star next to the coolant filler cap at a rate of about 1/2 gallon per 20 miles driven (~2000rpm nominal) and the Low Voltage battery light also came on.
Story:
I dropped it off at a local german import shop to have the belts + tensioners, a power steering hose, battery, the valve cover gasket and spark plugs replaced about a 2 weeks ago. after picking it up, it drove fine for a week, then I parked it at the airport over the xmas weekend and on my way home noted the 'coolant low' message on the obc and my heater would not blow warm air until ~10 miles of driving with the engine at temp (needle in middle for ~12-15 minutes before warm air)
got home and checked the coolant. It was about a half a gallon low so I added more and drove to work today.
on the drive home from work, about 3 miles in, my temp gauge started going past the middle point so i pulled over immediately, waited about 20 minutes and refilled with water. (the needle got to about the 3/4 mark) (the fill cap area was wet but water wasn't pouring out and I couldn't see the steam at the time)
I drove it the rest of the way home(20 miles). During one stop light the temps started to rise past mid point, but the light turned green and when I accelerated they went back down to mid point. As I pulled into my neighborhood, my low voltage light came on??. I parked it and popped the hood to get a better read on the source of leak noting the star shaped vent thing next to the fill cap seemed to be the culprit.
A few questions; I am suspicious of the belts/tensioner repair as a root cause of this, but what would narrow it down? I say this because of the low battery light in conjunction with the steam.
If the battery and coolant problem are likely not correlated, what else in the cooling system could be to blame?
Thanks
Story:
I dropped it off at a local german import shop to have the belts + tensioners, a power steering hose, battery, the valve cover gasket and spark plugs replaced about a 2 weeks ago. after picking it up, it drove fine for a week, then I parked it at the airport over the xmas weekend and on my way home noted the 'coolant low' message on the obc and my heater would not blow warm air until ~10 miles of driving with the engine at temp (needle in middle for ~12-15 minutes before warm air)
got home and checked the coolant. It was about a half a gallon low so I added more and drove to work today.
on the drive home from work, about 3 miles in, my temp gauge started going past the middle point so i pulled over immediately, waited about 20 minutes and refilled with water. (the needle got to about the 3/4 mark) (the fill cap area was wet but water wasn't pouring out and I couldn't see the steam at the time)
I drove it the rest of the way home(20 miles). During one stop light the temps started to rise past mid point, but the light turned green and when I accelerated they went back down to mid point. As I pulled into my neighborhood, my low voltage light came on??. I parked it and popped the hood to get a better read on the source of leak noting the star shaped vent thing next to the fill cap seemed to be the culprit.
A few questions; I am suspicious of the belts/tensioner repair as a root cause of this, but what would narrow it down? I say this because of the low battery light in conjunction with the steam.
If the battery and coolant problem are likely not correlated, what else in the cooling system could be to blame?
Thanks