Radiator Coolant 91 Hyndai Sonata

[debinator]

Frustrated with antifreeze loss...Every 2nd day I'm adding antifreeze to my rad. No leak spots where I park. No wierd colours in the rad or where you put oil. Sometimes it smokes a bit but can't pinpoint where it's coming from. Where is the antifreeze going? This girl knows nothing about cars.

[angierideswitme]

From what you say you seem to know alot about cars. The smoke could be your problem, when it smokes, is it a white smoke and smells sugarly? if so, then you are loosing coolant internally either by a crack or a leaky head gasket, this is a big problem, and can cost a awful lot of money to fix.
if not,
don't worry, I bet your problem originates with something simple. Is your overfill hooked up properly? and is your rad cap working right?

[debinator]

Hi, no I don't know much about cars, just been searching the internet and gathered info that way.

Where would or should the smoke be coming from, where can I check. How would I know if the overflow or cap is working correctly.

I had it in the shop and they said they did a 2 hour compression check and it checked out okay except when they checked it before I took it home the rad was down again, they topped it off but it just keeps happening over and over again.

I read somewhere that if it's head gasket etc. that there would be oil in the coolant and/or water in the oil?

[angierideswitme]

you, know alot about Cars, stop kidding yourself. to be honest, if you took it to a shop and they could not find out what was wrong with it, it will be difficult for anyone to figure out whats wrong on your description. but I'll try

you loosing coolant and proberly not through the head gasket, and not into the oil, (your right, if you have a blown head gasket, USUALY, there is coolant in the oil, or vise versa.)

The smoke I was talking about will come from your exhaust, if coolant is being burned.

The compression test, they pressurized the coolant system right? and it passed, for 2 hours?

Proberly your engine looses coolant only when it's running, this could be due to alot of reasons.

try parking you car and let it run for while, then check underneith for drips

You rad cap keeps your coolant system presurized. which keeps the coolant/antifreeze from boiling and in your rad. at certain set pressure(whic is created by your coolant heating up and expanding) the rad cap opens and expels coolant into the overflow bottle via a ruber hose. if too much coolant is expeled into the overflow, it is spit out onto the groudn, and lost forever.

When your car/coolant cools back down, the coolants volume shrinks and createsa vacume to pull the coolant that is now in the overflow back into the rad.

if your rad cap is not working properly(ie releasing coolant too early) then you will fill up the overflow and it will dump coolant back onto the ground. and you will loose coolant.

if your overflow system is misbehaving, it will not store the overflow coolant or not return it back to the rad.

this is I'm pretty sure how the sytem works on a your car, although it might not, so don't take my word

inspect the overflow bottle and hose, and try getting a new rad cap.

also, you may be loosing coolant through the heating system(you heater core, this creates heat so you don't freeze your nipples off)
this is sometimes located inside the cabin. so if you smell a sugarly aroma in your car, then you loosing coolant there. so if you heater core is whats loosing you coolant, then try looking under you car farhter back, cause the coolant could travel down the frame a fall onto the ground at the back off the car, or anywhere.

[debinator]

Does this make sense, my mechanic just called and said the leak was coming from the intake manifold? Haven't picked it up yet to see if the problem is still there.

[angierideswitme]

yeah, there are coolant lines running to hte intake manifold/throttle body, which would perfectly explain your magical dispearence of coolant.

I would say that theres your problem right there.:thumbsup:

[debinator]

Man oh man, this car is driving me crazy. The mechanic "fixed" the manifold gasket. Car chugged all the way home, wouldn't come out of gear, which I don't understand as it was fine before and then there was tonnes of smoke coming out of the rad by the time I got home 10 minutes later. Took it back in and was told it's the head gasket after all. Told him to go ahead and by the end of the day was told that's not it either. He's so frustrated, he's been a mechanic for many many years and has never seen anything like this before????? What the heck could it be.

[buzzbomber85gt]

did the guy forget to add antifreeze? might want to just fix the whole fluid system
radiator hoses do go bad;)
radiator cap's do go bad or may be the wrong pressure;)
thermostat may be stuck wide open or shut;)
valves or something in the water jacket in the block may be bad

there are several things that could be an issue but always it is small things that piss people off:(