Coolant dumped

[Tin Pot]

I owe so many beers to this forum.

Sooo. All good on the battery front, I’m in Newquay enjoying the surf scene. Haven’t driven the car for months, drove six hours down here on Saturday with the summer wheels on feelin fine.

Parking is at a premium here, I was lucky to get a spot on the street I’m staying. It’s at an angle, the car has been facing a fair downhill, nose down, since Saturday. Been getting full sun most of the day.

Car started up fine early this morning for a short drive. Then an afternoon drive up the coast (fantastic by the way) about an hour. Stopped in a field/car park for an hour. Drove 40 mins to another stop, parked in shade. About an hour later drove thirty minutes back.

So that’s the context. 

Stopped the car, noticed a whisp of steam from the driver side rear wheel as I went to the boot. Eyebrow raised. Popped the boot and noticed coolant (yellow/green) in the sealed area around the cap bubbling away. Both eyebrows raised. Heard a liquid noise, look at the rear driver side again, fluid is flowing out, and there’s a trail of it up the road.

Ejected passenger, and went looking for a garage. Looking in the rear view it didn’t start leaking again straight away. Parked up at a garage and it laid two lovely puddles of the stuff. But all garages in Newquay are fully booked for weeks.

Coolant light now comes on. Oil temp is about 90 instead of usual 80 and blinked red briefly.

So after finally finding a garage that could advise me, this is the plan...

Bought new cap, a VW Golf one the guy said fits and seals, and 17 litres of coolant because the gauge says empty.

1. Parked, facing down again.

“This should allow any air bubbles to work their way up the car and out the back”

2. Fill with coolant, leave cap off

3. Start engine and let it run

”This will get the coolant to run through the system”

4. If no problems, put on cap take for a short drive

...Thoughts?

...Names of Porsche specialists near Newquay?

???

[Nobbie]

It won't need 17 litres of coolant, but good to have it in case it needs a top up. Make sure you open the bleed valve which is between the oil and coolant filler to help the air escape. I drove mine like this for 20 miles after I changed the pump.

Something must be wrong for it to have dumped coolant. Any work done on it recently? Water pump is a favourite, any increase in noise from the pulley? Other possibility is a stuck thermostat which would not allow coolant to circulate around the radiators and lead the engine to overheat and pressurise the coolant enough to force it through the pressure release valve.

I suppose refill with coolant and then start and let idle to see what happens to temp/coolant and radiator fans. Good luck

[mike597]

AA/Rac?   Stuck thermostat sounds plausible to me given it sounds like it has boiled over and ejected coolant into the boot. 

[Hmsrinkers]

Sounds like it’s coming out of the coolant overflow pipe which is located drivers side rear (as you stated) once coolant cap is duff it will dump out of here and the coolant cap itself will bubble away (happened to me when my mot was being done ?) replaced cap, topped up and never happened again. 

 

You dont mention your temperature gauge reading, if thermostat was stuck closed your gauge would be reading very hot as you’re getting no cooling through the rads

[Tin Pot]

Yeah, I’m hoping it’s the cap that failed and the overflow pipe dropping coolant.  Going out there now to give it a go.

 

 

[Tin Pot]

Well I’ve got to step three.

Turning the engine on. More coolant leaked out..but that’s stopped now.

The coolant level where the car is keeps rising and dropping. Bubbling as it does.

What the heck does this mean?

[Nobbie]

2 minutes ago, Tin Pot said:

Well I’ve got to step three.

Turning the engine on. More coolant leaked out..but that’s stopped now.

The coolant level where the car is keeps rising and dropping. Bubbling as it does.

What the heck does this mean?

Hopefully that's just the air escaping from the system and it should settle down. Have you found the bleed valve? You will need to leave this open for a while when you start driving to let any remains air out.

[Tin Pot]

41 minutes ago, Nobbie said:

Hopefully that's just the air escaping from the system and it should settle down. Have you found the bleed valve? You will need to leave this open for a while when you start driving to let any remains air out.

No, I looked.  This is a 986S facelift if it matters.

There is the coolant cap. There is the oil cap. There is the oil dipstick...that’s it.

 

 

edit: I thought the whole system had dumped, but when I was filling, only five litres went in.

[Rav]

Could it be a cracked coolant tank or loose pipes at the back of the tank?

Worth a check - you can feel in the rear trunk down the sides of the carpet for any signs of coolant.

 

[Nobbie]

1 minute ago, Tin Pot said:

No, I looked.  This is a 986S facelift if it matters.

There is the coolant cap. There is the oil cap. There is the oil dipstick...that’s it.

You have to remove oil/coolant caps and then lift up the piece of black plastic and the bleed valve is under there. You lift the piece of wire up to open. See 5:00 into this vid

 

[Tin Pot]

16 minutes ago, Nobbie said:

You have to remove oil/coolant caps and then lift up the piece of black plastic and the bleed valve is under there. You lift the piece of wire up to open. See 5:00 into this vid

 

Cool - do you just flip it up and leave it for a few hours then? (I’ll have to close the boot)

[Nobbie]

2 minutes ago, Tin Pot said:

Cool - do you just flip it up and leave it for a few hours then? (I’ll have to close the boot)

Yes, I just left it up for the first 20 miles or so. Didn't go crazy with the revs, just left the Tip in auto. Probably a good idea to find a really steep hill and point nose down and let it idle for a bit. Mine was jacked up at the back for th water pump and this seemed to work well to get air out of the system.

[Tin Pot]

Just now, Nobbie said:

Yes, I just left it up for the first 20 miles or so. Didn't go crazy with the revs, just left the Tip in auto. Probably a good idea to find a really steep hill and point nose down and let it idle for a bit. Mine was jacked up at the back for th water pump and this seemed to work well to get air out of the system.

Mines parked nose down on a steep hill now. I’ll flip the thing in the morning, come back to it in the afternoon.

[Nobbie]

Just now, Tin Pot said:

Mines parked nose down on a steep hill now. I’ll flip the thing in the morning, come back to it in the afternoon.

Cool, hope it was just a dodgy cap?

[edc]

You will need the engine on and to raise and hold the revs occasionally and occasionally blip it to circulate the coolant and push the air out. You'll also need some coolant ready to go in if needed. 

[Saxosim]

Mine did something similar just after I got it on January and it turned out to be the thermostat was faulty.  Changed it for a low temp one and it did the trick.  I also changed the coolant cap just in case.

Good luck with it ?

[el 3.2S]

Some months ago, I experienced a coolant dump after parking it. I subsequently changed the coolant cap for an 04 one and all seemed well for a bit. Unfortunately my problems were a long way from being over, as the coolant tank then split and started leaking. Hope you do not get this same sequence of events.

[Tin Pot]

Coolant level dropped about six litres overnight, but nothing more on the tarmac.

10 hours ago, edc said:

You will need the engine on and to raise and hold the revs occasionally and occasionally blip it to circulate the coolant and push the air out. You'll also need some coolant ready to go in if needed. 

Cheers - did this for about ten minutes.  Now left it with the bleed valve flipped vertical and the coolant cap off. Will check again tonight.

[edc]

The proper way to do it is until the engine gets warm enough so the fans come on and the thermostat opens. Otherwise you may still have an airlock and a repeat incident. 

[ooid]

All the proposed solutions fine, but you need to ask why did it actually dump the coolant? a super-tight system (on 986) should not leak any coolant. You can sit in traffic for hours, while the system can cool itself down on both fans activated with different stages, without any problem. I would check the following;

1- Coolant tank (is it cracked or leaking?)

2- Water pump (If its about to go, usually makes bad rattle)

3- Radiators / fans (Are the fans working?)

4- Intermix / cracked cylinder head (this is the worst scenario, but you gotta check if there is any oil in the coolant. In 2000-2001 models, very common issue unfortunately)

Good luck!

[ooid]

+ Also, welcome to the club of "coolant p*ssing" BoXa owners club ?

It is not very uncommon, sadly! 

[PaulQ]

7 hours ago, Tin Pot said:

Coolant level dropped about six litres overnight, but nothing more on the tarmac. 

That's a lot of coolant. Must be p*ssing out somewhere ! 

[Tin Pot]

Well, if my next post is tomorrow morning, from a ball of fire somewhere up the A303 we’ll know why.

[JoeyH]

start with the simple stuff, you have changed the expansion tank cap which is spot on, it could well be this because if the cap is faulty then the system wont pressurise to the required level...

 

in basic terms the boling point is increased by just over 1 degree for each PSI above atmospheric pressure, which means the coolant in your system has a boiling point of somewhere around 120 degrees assuming the cap is holding as it should...lets hope its that...nice cheap easy fix, top up bleed and drive.

2nd most likely is a stat failed closed which means there is minimal flow to the radiators and the water is basically doing a circuit around the block and head getting hotter and hotter..! it's unusual this because stats are designed to fail open, but all to often they don't and after ruling it out on my Alfa TS and taking the cambelt off convinced it was the water pump, I now look at stats first as they are often much easier to get too ..most cars have the WP driven off the cambelt so checking the stat (15 min job) is better than checking the WP ( 2 hour job involving camlocks and or re-timing) I know on the boxster it's the serpentine that runs the WP so much easier to check than a cambelt driven WP.

3rd would be circulation = water pump, either impeller has imploded or the shaft is spinning and the impellar has come away.

4th would be a leak in the coolant hoses creating much the same scenario as the expansion tank cap , with the system not pressurizing and the boiling point of the coolant being to low to handle the temperatures.

and finally the dreaded HG, which would be a breach between the Cylinder (s) and water jacket allowing combustion gases to pressurise the system, there is not always evidence of this on the filler cap if its only a small breach...but if your car blows bits of the coolant system of consecutively after repairs it's a pretty good indicator it's over pressurizing , and there is only one place those gases can be coming from sadly.

 

sniff test to confirm.

 

fingers crossed it's one or a combination of the first 4..

 

good luck!