Coolant Disappearing
 

I brought my car home 5/16/2012. Sometime in July I noticed that the coolant level in the reservoir was low. I chalked it up to possibly not being fully burped at the factory, so I topped it off (just above the min mark when cold).

Fast forward to mid-December - Due to the somewhat warm winter up to that point I had not stored the car yet. I noticed that the coolant was low once again, not by much, so I put another small amount of coolant in (again, just above the min mark when cold).

Then on 5/2/2013 I noticed the same, thing, so I put a bit more into it.

On 5/4/2013 there was a dyno day, and at that point I noticed my car was blowing white smoke out of the exhaust at high RPMs (video below, thanks @xjohnx). When I got home, the coolant in the tank had dropped about 2" from where it was two days prior. I had put maybe 200 miles on it during that span. I had done an oil change and didnt see any coolant in the oil. I didn't have any jars that I could capture some oil with to have it analyzed, unfortunately.

[ame]http://youtu.be/6RAdhC1yzE4[/ame]

I made an appointment online with Toyota for the first available timeslot, 5/8 @ 8am. I didn't drive the car anywhere during that time. I brought it to them, they opened a techline case, scoped the cylinders (they said one had a bit of buildup in it) and did a compression test.

When cold, the cylinders are consistent. When hot, one cylinder is low. I will be getting the compression numbers when I pick up the car in the morning. The dealer says all signs are pointing to a defective head gasket (which was my first inclination as well), but Toyota has said to not do anything on the car, just note the current levels and if they drop any further, to bring the car back right away.

I'm a little pissed that the dealer can see that there is an issue with the car, but corporate is saying wait for it to break completely. The reason I bought this car was because A) its a lightweight RWD sportscar but most importantly B) it's brand new and supposed to be reliable. As the temperatures rise and I begin to use the air conditioning on a daily basis, I'm not very confident driving this car anymore knowing that at some point its going to potentially overheat and damage other parts. My livelihood depends on solid transportation as I average anywhere from 600 to 1,000 miles every week.

What do you guys think I should do? Is there any way to get Toyota to fix this before it becomes a much larger issue? The last thing I want is to be stranded while on my way to work, losing out on hours.

Also, I should note, the dealer attempted to tell me that the car was heavily modified and they weren't sure this would be covered under the warranty.

Engine mods:
-SRT Headerback exhaust
-Perrin lightweight crank pulley
-Crawford AOS

All other mods are visual or suspension.

Then they questioned me about forced induction, to which I responded with an emphatic NO, its never been turbo'd or supercharged. They also alluded to every bolt in the engine bay being touched, which is true, because I've replaced the stock hardware with stainless steel button head bolts. They have since backed down on the car being "heavily modified".

I would probably put the stock pulley back on they might give you an issue about that. I would also complain to corporate and get it fixed, you are not a test mule for the car.

Torture test time!

:bellyroll:

OK, picked the car up from the dealer today. According to the paperwork:

- When cold, the cylinders did not lose any pressure over the course of 5 hours.

- When hot, there was a 4psi drop in 15 minutes. I asked which cylinder this was occurring on, but the SA couldn't answer that and the technician was off today. I will find out next week.

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I spoke with a tech that is much more familiar with building engines and Subies in general. He said it sounds like the cylinder sleeve/liner isn't level with the block deck, which is why the compression is dropping when hot and not so much when cold.

Now to find a way to get Toyota to fix this before it becomes a larger issue.

:cry:

What are your thoughts on this? Think its a bad block as well.

Dropping compression when hot? Bad block. I'd imagine a valve leaking would show under cold conditions. No ifs ands or buts now comes making Toyota foot the bill...

Thank you, this confirms what the other tech mentioned. Now to lean on Toyota.

Not to mention coolant disappearing wouldn't be a valve-related problem unless your headgasket was FUBAR'd? The liner diagnosis sounds correct...

Are you doing all these coolant checks when the engine is hot or cold? How much coolant in total do you feel you have lost and over the course of how many miles?

My initial thought was a defective head gasket. I explained the symptoms to the dealer but had them draw their own conclusions, and they were thinking head gasket as well. But it threw up a red flag when they said it loses compression when hot but not cold, I just wanted to hear from someone else to confirm my suspicions.

I check it when cold, usually after sitting at least 6 hours (most of the time overnight though).

The car currently has just over 25k miles. I've added maybe 1/2 a gallon :iono:

Also to note - The very first time that I noticed the coolant was low, the only modifications to the car was tires/wheels.

It could be pistons/rings for the low compression, but that doesn't make any sense if you add coolant to the equation.

NOTE: I'm only an e-expert, not a real expert.

I check my oil about once a week, I'm not burning any. I'd think oil consumption would be an issue if it were pistons/rings.

After letting the car sit in the garage since ~2am Sunday morning:

- Overflow tank is past the max line now
- Radiator is 1.5-2" low on coolant

The car will be going back to the dealer in the morning.

This seems to be a rare occurence so far. Hopefully they will get it taken care of for you.

Finally got clarification from the dealer regarding the compression test.

According to them all four cylinders were down 4psi over 15 minutes when hot. That sounds odd to me, and I plan to bring it to a different dealer for another compression test.

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Wonder if the air in the cylinder/pressure gauge cooled off a bit resulting in less psi? Is your oil cloudy or water fouled? How bout the underside of your oil cap?

Oil looked fine during the last change. I'll be sending a sample to Blackstone for the next oil change. The cap is clean as well.

The coolant has a weird oily film in the rad filler. Not sure what that is as I'm not losing oil, and I check the oil level often.

I'm almost tempted to put the car back to 100% stock (engine wise) and toss is on the dyno. I wonder if my exhaust has anything to do with the low numbers.

Im also curious if the AOS has a small amount of condensation in it, which is what the white smoke from the exhaust was. I need to get another compression test done though to rule out an engine issue though, but it still wouldn't explain the disappearing coolant.

I'm a bit perplexed by this and just want to toss the damn supercharger on already, but I don't want to exacerbate a potential manufacturing defect and cause them to deny warranty coverage.

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I would put 100% back to stock then resolve this issue. GL and keep us updated

Having the same issue..2 months ago i noticed my coolant was low and i topped it off. Went to a meet on may 5th and someone pointed out my coolant was at the low mark and i was curious as to how when i just topped off a month before..its only may 19th and coolant is halfway down again. I do get white smoke coming out of the tail. I have tune/intake/frontpipe. I guess ill have to take my car to the dealership soon.

Out of personal curiosity, as I am watching this coolant issue very closely, how does the oil/stuff in your catch cans look if you using one?

Crap, that does sound like a headgasket issue...:(

Wish I could tell you, but I'm using a Crawford AOS, its sealed. Its been on the car since ~9k miles.

I drove up to NY this weekend and just got back into town tonight. Tomorrow morning/afternoon I will check the coolant levels again (once cold). I put about 900 miles on the car since the last dealer visit - which was 5/15.

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Yeah it does. If oil and radiator fluid are going that quick I would expect something leaking out the head gasket. Check the tail pipe with the AC off and see if you get anything out of it. If you see any fluid I would have it back to stock and to the dealership as soon as possible.

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I saw something posted where the piston sleeves fall about 2mm or so closer to the crank. I'm honestly not sure if it was a post here on this forum about this car though. I know, not too helpful, but worth a look.

Just checked coolant while the car was hot, and all the coolant is to the top but when the car is cold it shows low...not sure if thats normal

Coolant expands when it's hot, so that behavior is normal. As to whether or not the values you see are normal, I can't comment.

As long as it continues to show correctly while warm, then you aren't losing any.

Care to expand on that ? I recently noticed that my coolant is barley over the low mark once it sits over a day or two, but after a long drive its almost full ! Should I just top it off or take it to the dealer , considering I'm going to boost my car soon I'm trying to figure out any issues I have :thanks:

Rule of thumb: if you measure/check your coolant levels when warm then continute to do so when warm. If you check when cold do so when cold. Just don't mix between the two as someone stated earlier coolant does expand due to temperature.

This issue does seem weird to me. Hope you guys get it figured out. GL.

That's what I'm currently doing and noticed when cold ( haven't been driven for a day or two ) it's barley above low


After letting it warm up, and driving to Uni (4sh minutes) it's over 1/4, a 15 minute drive gives me a 1/2 reading

What's weird is after a very long drive 1hour or so it's 3/4 full

I'm lost, I do know coolant tends to expand but that much ?

This is my issue as well.

When stone cold (sitting for 24+ hours), the radiator itself is down ~2" and the overflow tank is halfway between min and max.

When hot, obviously I don't open the rad cap, but the overflow is about 1/4" above max. That's a huge variation between cold and hot coolant levels.

I haven't had the time to have the compression tested by a trusted mechanic yet, but I'm still planning on it.

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All my readings and assumptions are off the overflow tank, I haven't peaked into the raditor yet. Do you just pop the cap open and look in there ( when cool obviously ) ?
:thanks:

You guys are worrying too much. As long as you have some coolant in your overflow, then don't worry about it.

thats what i thought ! i told my self as long as my car didn't over heat yet I'm good :bellyroll:

I'm really hoping thats the case, but the white smoke out of my exhaust while on the dyno concerned me. Same with the compression test that the dealer did. If anything, the compression should rise when warm, not the drop (which is what it did).

i bought my car a month ago, couple of days later noticed an occasional coolant smell under a load (around 4k rpm, still breaking in the engine so try no to rev it above 4k). took it to the dealer, they said they didn't find any leaks (though I think it was just a visual, the guy said the car is hot, so the system is under pressure, there is no point of doing pressure test). anyways, I put a tape on the coolant reservoir in a morning, while the engine is cold, the mileage was just like 50. Now I have just under 800, one month later, the coolant level is about 3/4-1" down, checked again in a morning.

I just did a quick search for 'coolant' in the topic of a thread and a decent amount of threads came up. It looks like the coolant level drops fairly rapidly for lots of people, yet no one in the threads I looked through were able to determine why. Just seems like it just evaporates at a higher rate when it overflows hot into the coolant reservoir.

Curious to see if there will be a reasonable explanation in this thread or if it will just die off like the rest of them