Let me preface this by saying I'm sure everybody here is getting tired of my cries for help with piddly issue after issue. Trust me, so am I. But I must say I appreciate the help every time. Current issue - coolant disappearing? Saturday night a buddy and I went to MPLS for a concert. While driving around I got one random big whiff of coolant, followed by the heater eventually blowing cold at idle. However, it worked fine at speed and never overheated. Google says check the coolant level. I did, it was low. Topped it off, test drove it, "good to go". Right? Went to work yesterday and seemed normal. Heading home I get to the first stop light, there's a little steam coming out the hood line and the scoop, and a smell of coolant. Of course I'm running a little late to daycare so didn't have time to stop and investigate. I figured it was the same thing that happened the other night so I'd refill again and see what happens. Again, never got warmer than normal and had the weird intermittent hest issue. So today I'm home sick from work, figured I'd try to find the issue. Assuming it was low again I went to fill the upper tank. Full to the brim still. Test drive to try to replicate yesterday's issue(s), nothing. W. T. F.?!
I'm guessing sticky thermostat...with air in the system you will get cold thru heater core, Monitor the level of the overflow?
When I checked/filled the first time the overflow and upper reservoir were both low. When I checked them today, they were both where I filled them to Monday night. Part of me was thinking it might be thermostat related because yesterday when I saw the steam it seemed like it was right around when it got to operating temp. Still kinda confused as to how I saw steam and smelled coolant with what seems like none missing. Also don't have any bubbles happening in the overflow, no oil in the coolant that I can tell, and the oil appears to be good as well.
This has been an issue with mine as of late as well. Actually called Jesse about it and he said that he could do a pressure check on the system. I was about 2 quarts low, so i added. Hasn’t been low since, but i’ve been getting frequent coolant smell and occasional steam from the hood scoop.
This is kinda weird. I saw your post in the Tuesday meat thread about having headaches from coughing so much. Felt like it'd be slightly a$$hole-ish of me to say "glad I'm not the only one", because I'm on my second round of that currently. This situation also applies... Haha.
Maybe a small leak somewhere... pressure test would verify. Do the parts stores rent/loan the universal pressure test kits?
When I had this issue on my wrx it was leaking on the lower rad hose. Replaced the hoses and clamps and it fixed the issue.
Same here, lower radiator hose clamp was kiddywhompus and had slight leak. However, the upper rad hose was rubbing against the alternator causing the belt to slip. This is after I had a hairline crack in my radiator and replaced it with an aluminum one. Any leak eventually drips down on the exhaust so it's hard to pinpoint. Also, don't forget about the throttle body heater hose, might as well check the heater core hoses if your back there...
Not a Subaru, but my 4Runner has a weird headgasket leak, where it is mostly coolant flowing (very, very slowly) into combustion chambers - versus the usual mixing back into the rest of the coolant, so the color always looks good. It'll either blow coolant out of the overflow when towing, or slowly gobble it up. If you're missing significant amounts, I'd think it was a HG leak, based on my other experiences. Then again, burp the system and check it daily? Maybe that'll shed some light on it.
