Significant yet untraceable coolant leak?

Residual coolant? That much? No way!

From the point where it seems to come from, I would guess somewhere around water pump.

 

Rip pass side seat out remove nessasery trim and inspection cover there u can rule out the w pump that's the first thing I would do. If it is w pump I would change out the new bearing also. Gud Luk mate

 

I have the same issue, but my PPI did say one hose had a bit of a leak. There are 2 hoses at the front, a delivery and a return. I think they have a tendency to leak. That looks a bit sever for a water pump. Get a set of ramps and get under there, it may be difficult to see from the access panel because of how far down it is.

 

From the access panel u can c the thermostat housing everything if it's leaking around top/front of engine u will def be able to see it. Remove panel hit it with pressure tester if u have one or run engine build up some pressure u will find it.

 

Don't need a lift per se.... build some " wheel cribs"....jack up the car, and place the cribs under the rear tires.

Cribs... https://www.amazon.com/Race-Ramps-RR-WC-10-Wheel-Crib/dp/B003ZAGPWO

You do have a (pump) jack, right?

... could someone be playing a joke on ya? Maybe dumping some coolant under your F-car to make ya worry?

I got a good one if ya know someone with a pickup....... install a long zip tie to your pal's driveshaft and leave it long so the tang slaps the underside of the cab or bed when in motion. Oh you should see the expression on their face.

 

Yes, I have quite the puddle on the garage floor and haven't been able to get under there to diagnose yet. Plus it's been kinda chilly. My reservoir was bone dry also. Luckily I have only driven it a couple times since I got it at the end of december.

 

There are a few possibilities. The best approach is to put the car on a lift, remove the underpanel and have a look. There really isn't a good way to see anything with everything covered. Water pump is a possibility and not a difficult fix. A bigger problem would be a heat exchanger leak that would result in coolant overfilling the gearbox and leaking from the gearbox breather. If this happens, coolant and gear oil become comingled. The gearbox won't last long that way.
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1. Do you use regular power steering fluid or pentosin CHF, which is green?

2. You gots to get off the bottom pan to see where its coming from. I use a set of black plastic ramps to get the car up. You can get the pan off with them. predict a bottom clamp is loose on the hoses to the front radiators.

 

arachnyd,
Interestingly, my car does the same exact thing! It seems that if I drive/operate it during cooler temps, then let it cool down in the garage it belches up a small volume of coolant. I'm in MN so the temp differential from ambient air & the engine is quite great during winter.

I pressure tested my cooling system and it was fine (no discernible leaks). I checked the coolant to see if any oil contamination from a leaking/failed heat exchanger. Nothing (fortunately). I placed a scope into the region of the water pump and couldn't see anything obviously wet but this was not ideal or definitive for I have yet to figure out how to properly gain access to the service port/windows behind the seats. What I did notice was that when I opened the coolant reservoir after 3 months of no operation (in the middle of winter), it was oddly still under pressure! After cleaning up the coolant, I haven't seen any more leaking.

One thing that I was thinking that may be failing is the coolant cap. I've seen posts by Rifledriver stating that the coolant caps fail after a few years. Mine is 16 years old and likely needs to be replaced.

 

Mine did that a couple weeks ago. It was the heat exchanger. You don't want to play around with that. I had no gearbox damage, but I was lucky.

 

My car is in the shop for a coolant leak and it turns out it was the heat exchanger. How do they know if the gear box was damaged or not?

 

Flush it a bunch of times, put in new 75W-90 and see if it works. About the only way, short of a teardown.

 

Yep, it's a huge mess to clean up.

 

OK great! My mechanic seems pretty hopeful that the gearbox will be OK. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Get a look at the underpanel too. That will hide things in between the engine and the ground. Also curious about oil cooler but that should only have oil in it, correct? Heat exchanger for gearbox sound right. Good luck.

 

If it is the water pump seal weeping, you should see lump of dried coolant where the shaft seal is. It can leak small drips of hot coolant and just flash off, hence you see no sign of a leak when running. My rav 4 was leaking for months but only needed to top up a cupfull a month until we got it changed .
If you have been pushing the car so the coolant has got very hot, then put in garage it might have found its way past the seal to relieve the pressure, hence your puddle