Blown head gasket??
 

Steam was billowing out on my way back from home today. was only a couple of miles from home so pulled in and i saw a pool of greenish liquid sitting on the top of the engine just below the intake.

Let the engine cool down and an hour later, popped the radiator cap ,turned on the car and let it idle and then tried to top it off with water.
SOon as the car was running the radiator water level went to the top and then i started seeing bubbles. Soon as the car was turned off the water level dropped.

textbook case of head gasket being blown?

I had brought attention to the pooling of the liquid issue to the dealer 4000 miles ago (got just over 9k miles on the Odometer) and they said they cleaned it off and things are ok and sent me off.

wonder how much damage might have happened on the engine??

video is here
https://vid.me/e/LkBU

Why is your coolent green? If you have green coolant that is bad you should have subaru super long life blue coolent??

If the puddle was on top of the engine I doubt it was a head gasket. Probably a hose leak?

pull the dipstick

Does it's milkshake bring all the mechanics to the yard?

Not sure what your video is supposed to show. I doubt the car would run very well if it were pushing enough coolant to make it pool on the engine.

Fire it up at night and shine a flashlight around the heads if you really think it's blown that big a hole it will show.

Likely NOT a blown headgasket.
Do you have any unusual smoke coming from the exhaust?
Any oil in the coolant?
Any coolant in the oil?


First test for a blown HG is a leakdown test, but with the horrible access to the plugs, this is not trivial on this engine.

Does the oil we use actually turn milky? I know some oils don't these days because of the improved detergent packages. I was using Mobil 1 in my Cherokee, and it didn't turn milky when the head cracked. It just turned a slightly lighter color but still looked like oil. It's often not easy to tell just by looking at the dipstick.

In the absence of a leakdown test, you can send an oil sample off to a lab like Blackstone for $25 to test for the presence of coolant in the oil. I send off a sample at every oil change anyway, just to see how my engines are wearing.

You can also test for exhaust gas in the coolant using a combustion leak tester, which runs about $50 from Amazon or a local parts store. OP is worried about seeing bubbles, and the combustion leak test kit would help determine whether those are just burps or exhaust gas getting into the coolant.

Yeah, it is coolant. it is distinctive sweet smell.

It is leaking and pooling just under the intake manifold.

as the engine warms up it is burning off the coolant pooled on top of the case.


Coolant level is down on the radiator when shut off, turn on, the coolant level rises and then you see these bubbles escaping. Quite possibly exhuast gases. cracked head, bad gasket, cylinder leak, who knows..car has barely over 9k miles. The symptom was showing up when the car was at 5k miles.


Having it towed to the dealer later today but they can inspect it only on Monday speil am getting already we shall see.

Is it possible any of the coolant lines going to the intake manifold are leaking? I have been noticing the smell of coolant in my engine bay and am working on hunting it down. I don't believe the Koyo Radiator is leaking, but hasn't been ruled out yet.

Yeah, this is number one suspect.

BUt I will ask them to tear apart and inspect everything to be sure and do a full coolant flush before handing it back to me.

It is normal for the coolant level to rise as it heats up.


When when of my past cars blew its HG it was blowing what looked like steam / white smoke out the exhaust. That was the coolant being heated to steam in the combustion chamber. The oil looked like chocolate milkshake.


A different car would just overheat and blow coolant like crazy out the radiator. That was exhaust gasses getting into the coolant. Didn't get into the oil on that car.

being told it is a failed O-ring on the intake manifold.

Not sure for cause of failure. Being attributed to faulty part from the factory. Will re-rest for any other leaks in the coolant system after new part installed and full system flush.

Do you remember which o-ring it was that failed? and where? sorry for bumping an old thread.. kind of getting the same issue.. need to take the intake manifold off soon to inspect all the hoses and everything though..

Pretty unlikely it's a head gasket. There many more likely sources for a coolant leak in the engine compartment.