Losing Water car is annoying me now!!!
 

Hi guys probably annoying a few people on here now always going on about my car troubles.But my car is losing water and i am always having to fill up my coolant tank once a week (one in front of battery).My heaters are sometimes blowing cold when at a standstill in the car (for example at the lights) and now today the radiator fan wont go off at all.Also it doesnt like starting up first thing in the morning and it idles really low like 200rpm sometimes and then around 1K othertimes what could this be? really need some help as love the car.

First things first, if you're losing that amount, then you've either got:-

Loose coolant hose/s
Split hose/s
Hole/s in rad or split/s in end tank/s
Split/s in header tank
Badly leaking water pump
Badly leaking w/p gasket
Badly leaking stat gasket
HG/s failure
Internal fracture/s to engine block's coolant gallery/s

I'd try to address this issue first and get it sorted. Then you can address the running/sensors issue later. No pointg in doing it the other way round!

is that not the expansion tank?

its the overflow i think.

to OP, you should be filling up water through the header tank, infront of turbo, by airbox.

Sounds a bit like the dreaded head gasket,they can let water into the cylinders when parked overnite causing hard starting and a missfire that clears when running id check that if you cant find a leak anywhere

HG from ur symptoms, the using of water and struggling in a morning points that way if you have no obvious signs of loss,
sniffer test may help show it up.

I agree, that in the absence of any obvious visual loss, then it's looking more like an HG failure. :(

I told him yesterday how to check the head gasket.

https://www.scoobynet.com/general-te...-cold-air.html

but how would i do a sniffer test?
and how would i sort an airlock out?
also the car has done 171000 km (116000 miles) so im thinking it could be the hg?
Thanks everyone im sorry if im annoying you all with the car but its my first one and ive been done over on it basically.

The easiest way is to give it a run through the gears on boost TBH, if the heaters blow cold and the water in the header tank drops then give it the sniffer test.

You go to a garage and ask then to do a sniffer test on your car please thank you very much.

We will tell you once you have the sniffer results.

You are obsessed with the god damn HG man.


Chill Winston, one step at a time.

First of all, start filling up at the correct point and see if you still lose water.

ok thanks i will get it done soon as poss and let you all know.Thanks again.

as above fill the right tank up first, you don't put anything in the 1 by the battery, as that just drains to the floor, i would hazard a guess you don't have anything wrong with the car as your driving it and it is fine with no smoke, knock, banging, lack of power, just a case of you not sure what your doing

right i filled up the correct tank and there was almost nothing in the tank it must of took a litre of water to fill it up as she swallowed most of it and didnt spit it out i gave it a good hammering from 2nd to 5th on boost for a while with heaters on and they didnt go cold been giving it some stick all day doing 40 miles and the level hasnt dropped and it is pressurising very well but it has very brown water in the tank is that something to worry about? and now that ive topped it up with water could this sort my cold starting problem if the coolant sensor couldnt read anything? Thanks for there help everyone.

Well done! That is a good result and would initially point away from the HG.

Yes, very much so. You MUST run some coolant in the system, 50/50. Firstly to prevent the system freezing and causing major damage, and secondly it acts as a corrosion inhibitor, again preventing internal damage.


Possibly, you will find out in the morning. Have the fans stopped running continually?

No problem.

yay so happy for ya mate, gotta smile a bit though when i owned my first impreza i was confused as to why it had 2 coolant tanks, but woop woop , as bat says get it's coolant sorted with correct mixture and i would do it again in about a month so it's had a good flush

Just drive it around for a while and see how it goes,keep a eye on the water and hopefully your ok,if it drops again drive to any garage and get a sniff test some wont even charge for this,hope all works out well for you its always a worry when you buy a new car,i worked in a garage for 15 years and i still get paranoid when ive just spent out on something new :thumb:

thanks everyone for there help.
the fans have stopped now just come on when needed.
and how many litres of anti freeze and water to put in?
also the only leak i have found is the top thin rubber pipe off the header tank looks like an overflow pipe it leads from the tank to a metal pipe over the radiator.

full system is 7.2 litres of fluid, so 3.5 of each, do a search on here for the best way to refill coolant and bleed system, or pop to a garage that can use a vaccum to refill it

As above, it's 50/50.
If you aren't sure when it was done last, I'd be inclined to drain it and refill with good quality antifreeze and clean water.

Can't do any harm, but for heaven's sake find out how to do it before starting;)

ok will do thanks very much everyone.

just to let everyone know i got a sniffer test done at a very good price of £20 and they tried 2 tests and it passed so no hg troubles yessssssssss!!!!! Thanks everyone for there great advice.

Result! :cool:

yeah it started on its own power but it took two attempts but ive just baught an exide platinum battery that has 580cca and 65ah as the old one was 420cca so that should help cure it hopefully? so got to sort out suspension next .Thanks again everyone.