Car / Antifreeze problem....

arcath

Well my 2006 caviler overheated last night, so I'm checking the coolant reservoir on the left side and its dry.

So I filled it up last night with new antifreeze and everything was good.

I just work up and ran to the store right quick when the coolant light popped on again. Again I checked the reservoir and it was empty again.

How fucked am I on this?

-Phil-

As far as i know, the coolant resevoir fills up when the car begins to run since the liquid expands. I could possibly be that your radiator was just so low, that all of that liquid that was in the resevoir went into the radiator. Did you open the radiator cap to see if there was liquid in there? (MAKE SURE THE CARE IS OFF AND HAS BEEN OFF FOR A FEW HOURS, HOT COOLANT = BAD!)

Metalbourne

It could just be a busted hose.

arcath

what i did last night was put coolant in the reservoir and cranked the engine to get it in the radiator and then filled the reservoir back up.

Then the car sat at work till 8am when I drove home 5 min. I just woke up and drove 5 min again when the light popped on. I checked the reservoir again and its bone dry.

According to the internet I don't have a radiator cap, which explains why I couldnt find one.

The Internet Says.... wrote:

It's the cap on top of the over flow resevoir, its up in the top left under the hood just read the cap and the label on the resevoir it will tell you what it is.

I didn't check the work parking lot, but there was no big puddle of antifreeze in my drive way when I left.

Chalkbot

If there was liquid on the ground under your car, that's bad. If not, you were just really low on fluid and need to add more, like the previous poster said.

If you have a leak, fill it up and drive to the auto repair shop. Driving without coolant is a very bad thing.

Backstop

arcath wrote: »

I didn't check the work parking lot, but there was no big puddle of antifreeze in my drive way when I left.

You could be in the nightmarish situation of the coolant leaking into another part of the engine and getting burned up, but then you didn't say anything about your exhaust being terribly smoky/smelly and the car driving like shit.

Wasn't 2006 the year GM started with the 100,000 mile warranty?

Slider

I'd say, fill it up again. If it disappears, then you have a leak and will need to take it in.

I was on the freeway and had a hose break on my old Honda Civic. There was smoke and fluid everywhere. I had to move it within a few hours, because of those WSP a**holes, so I patched it up with cloth and ducktape and drove it home with the gauge in the red.

-Phil-

its is possible that it is a busted hose and only leaks when the car heats up. You can take it to your mechanic, and they will connect a pump to it to put the system under pressure.

However, just to let you know, I had the same problem where my hose was leaking and it was going onto the main belt. I lost all stearing since it was front wheel drive and the belt was slipping. When they placed that pump mechanism it didnt show because It was such a small leak.

arcath

Thanks for the advice guys. I filled it back up and I will play the wait and see game between now and when i get home from work at 8am tomorrow.

Ill post updates and questions then if needed.

Thanks much.

Raekreu

Backstop wrote: »

arcath wrote: »

I didn't check the work parking lot, but there was no big puddle of antifreeze in my drive way when I left.

You could be in the nightmarish situation of the coolant leaking into another part of the engine and getting burned up, but then you didn't say anything about your exhaust being terribly smoky/smelly and the car driving like shit.

Wasn't 2006 the year GM started with the 100,000 mile warranty?

I actually had this happen to me, antifreeze/engine oil were mixing freely in my previous car. I knew something was up when bright red-orange foam started leaking out of the bottom of my engine. It was not a good day.

Like others have said it's most likely a bad hose. If it isn't that then it's probably a bad seal where the water pump contacts the radiator. And if it isn't that then it's probably a bad water pump. Hoses are cheap and usually pretty simple to install if you want to do it yourself. Seals, though cheap, are much more of a pain to replace and are usually a whole afternoon type project. Pumps are ever so slightly harder to replace than seals and are fairly expensive.

eternalbl

If you check your oil dipstick and the oil is milky, the antifreeze is mixing with your engine oil.

Raekreu

eternalbl wrote: »

If you check your oil dipstick and the oil is milky, the antifreeze is mixing with your engine oil.

True if the antifreeze you are using is yellow or green. In my case the oil was orange-red because the antifreeze I was using was orange. Hope this isn't the OP's problem, though, cause as far as engine problems go this one's easily a 9 on the badness scale.

FyreWulff

I called my brother, who is the car guy of the family, and he thinks if you can't find a leak anywhere, you should put coolant in, run the car, and watch and see if the fluid goes down. Then put more in until it stops going down, since the res. is actually the overflow for the radiator.

The theory being that it's so dry that it could be using up coolant faster than usual. I guess it'd be like if you were constantly driving with a half tank.

eternalbl

It's probably just semantics, but a vehicle shouldn't use coolant in that sense. If the coolant keeps going low it has to be going somewhere, whether it's leaking onto the ground from a hose or out of the radiator or into the engine through a gasket, possibly into the oil or just being burnt off in combustion. If the coolant just hasn't been checked and topped up in quite a while we might be looking at such a small leak that it's not a big deal. Besides that, I'm sure over time at least some coolant would just evaporate if the overflow tank isn't sealed.

THEPAIN73

A GM car?

Leaking?! WHAT?!

It is the intake gaskets.

95% of the time it's this.

Get it fixed soon.

4 hours of labor and about $150 in parts.

mooshoepork

I'd start praying to god you haven't warped the head. Get it checked. ( I just had the exact same thing you're describing happen. Turns out I needed new gaskets and had to get the head levelled. )

arcath

Seems that the tank was just a little low. The reservoir is fine today after I put a bit more into it.

Guess I got lucky.