Corsa Coolant Keeps Draining?

Hi.

My wife has a 2004 Vauxhall Corsa SXI.

Over the past 2 months she has noticed that the car's engine coolant needs re-filling much more regularly, and it's now at a point now when she's needing to do this around 3 times each week

I'm doing this at the moment, but obviously it is very inconvenient and I'm worried it may lead to even bigger problems down the line if I don't deal with it now.

I've searched round Google and read a few things on the problem, but I know very little about cars and have been lost in car related jargon each time I attempted to read into the responses other people had provided to other peoples problems and symptoms.

Basically when I leave the car parked on my drive just after filling it, a tiny puddle appears on the drive right under the coolant tank, and occasionally when I start the car, white smoke comes out of the exhaust.

Further to these, I have also checked the oil, and there seems to be a thick white style putty building in there as there was a small layer of this over the cap when I removed it. Also when I start the car my gearstick now seems to vibrate that bit more ferociously than normal, and I can feel the vibrations of the engine through the drivers seat.

The vibrations may just be a figure of my imagination, but I'm relatively sure they weren't this strong previously.

If someone could please give me some advice it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Mike. it sounds like u may have 2 problems going on. the puddle when u fill the coolant could be from a leak in the coolant tank or a hose connected to it.

but more serios is that it sounds like u may have a blown head gasket, or a cracked cylinder head, and this is a expensive repair. a bad head or head gasket causes coolant to get into the combustion chamber in the engine and get burned along with the fuel, and the white smoke u see from the tail pipe is burning coolant. it allso can let coolant get into the oil, and that milky stuff is a pretty sure sign of that.

if i had your car in the shop, id do a 'cooling system pressure test' to check for external leaks, and a 'block test' to check for internal leaks. if the block test showed combustion gas in the coolant, thats a dead giveaway that u got a head or head gasket problem.

if u let this go on too long it can ruin your engine, so id suggest getting it checked out as soon as u can. conniecartech wrote:it sounds like u may have 2 problems going on. the puddle when u fill the coolant could be from a leak in the coolant tank or a hose connected to it.

but more serios is that it sounds like u may have a blown head gasket, or a cracked cylinder head, and this is a expensive repair. a bad head or head gasket causes coolant to get into the combustion chamber in the engine and get burned along with the fuel, and the white smoke u see from the tail pipe is burning coolant. it allso can let coolant get into the oil, and that milky stuff is a pretty sure sign of that.

if i had your car in the shop, id do a 'cooling system pressure test' to check for external leaks, and a 'block test' to check for internal leaks. if the block test showed combustion gas in the coolant, thats a dead giveaway that u got a head or head gasket problem.

if u let this go on too long it can ruin your engine, so id suggest getting it checked out as soon as u can.


Great, thanks.

I will get it looked at Friday.

Worst case scenario; how much will it cost for the repair and how long will we be without the Car ((drives to work etc)) ? Thanks You'll have to ask the repair shop that question.Car Repair Talk's forum.