Where has all the coolant gone??

[rice]

About a day ago, i filled the coolant tank to the "full" line with a 50/50 coolant, and today i checked it again and its near to half, wow, thats a lot of coolant disappearing in that short amount of time, where has it all gone?? Hopefully i'm putting in the right coolant, i have a 94 corolla and have no smoke coming from the tailpipe (other than cold starting it in the cold winter morning) and my temperature gauge is normal, also checked my oil and it still looks honey clear from about a month ago, any help would be appreciated, thanks

[Dr Tweak]

Well, is it leaking anywhere?

-Doc

[94_Rolla_Guy]

its either a external leak from somewhere out of the system so you'd see it, otherwise its internal and is going into the combustion chamber or the engine oil.

[Flashmn]

If you fill it to Full when the engine is cold, some coolant will blow out, because coolant from the engine will come out as the engine heats up.

[Streetglower]

its possible that your radiator was low and drew in the extra coolant from the resovoir.

[Dr Tweak]

Talk about stating the obvious.

When an engine is hot, the coolant is expanded. Once the engine cools, it creates a vacuum in the cooling system and takes it in through the overflow bottle to make up the difference. So, if the coolant keeps disappearing, it's because the system is loosing it somewhere.

[REN69]

It doesn't neccesarily mean its gone though.. its called an "overflow" container for a reason... if there's too much coolant it will "overflow" to the container, if there isn't enough fluid then it won't, so you probably need more coolant if it hasn't overflowed. Neither of my cars have fluid in the overflow container.. neither of them overheats.. what would that mean?

[Flashmn]

You're supposed to have water at the "low" mark when cold and "hot" mark when hot, or somewhere in between.

[Guido]

Originally Posted by REN69

Neither of my cars have fluid in the overflow container.. neither of them overheats.. what would that mean?

You don't maintain your cars.

[Peter]

ur running low next time ur car is at running temp check i bet theres gonna be some there if not ur running really low

[REN69]

Originally Posted by Guido

You don't maintain your cars.

I guess its a miracle my 89 GTS made it to 345,000km then.

[rice]

Originally Posted by Peter

ur running low next time ur car is at running temp check i bet theres gonna be some there if not ur running really low

there is no external leaking that i can see, i guess Peter is right somehow though, when i checked it again at normal running hot temperature, it was a little near the half line, but not by much, i guess i'll have to wait and see. Also, the coolant looks very milky, is it suppose to look milky?? and doesn't really look clean, looks like some dust is in there? will I be fine?

[Limnos]

Did you recently have the coolant changed in your car? When you first filled your tank to the 50/50 line was it empty before then? Sometimes when you get your coolant changed there can be air pockets in the line. These may gradually work their way out but it takes coolant to fill up the empty spaces and this could account for the loss. Otherwise, you may have a slow leak somewhere. Check the ground under your car. Also look in the engine compartment. You could have a slow leak onto a hot part of the engine and it may never even end up on the ground in a puddle.

[rice]

^im starting to get worried, no, i havn't change/drained my coolant, i checked the coolant when it was hot again, and it was at the low level, whats going on here? *sigh

[Streetglower]

you need to pressure test the system.

Also if it is milky, check for the presence of oil or tranny fluid in the coolant. you may have a blown headgasket, busted tranny cooler.