[ncyankee101]

I'm just curious if anyone has had luck living with this problem and just adding coolant as needed? I had a 2009 that started losing small amounts of coolant, I think the problem started around 170K IIRC. I never verified that it was leaking from the usual places, I just checked it every night and added a few ounces of coolant to bring it up to the filler neck. Oddly enough it hardly used any coolant in the summer, but needed topped off any time the temp dipped below 60F or so. The colder it was the more the level would drop. My theory was the heating / cooling cycle of both the block and coolant in colder weather exacerbated the problem. It seemed that it would leak just enough to relieve some of the pressure in the cooling system, at a lower pressure than the radiator cap because coolant wouldn't stay in the reservoir. I never tested this by letting the level drop more, I feared getting an air bubble in the cooling system. Any time I couldn't see coolant in the filler neck I would add some, usually only 3-4 oz maybe 5-6 on a really cold night.

It's also possible it was something else entirely, maybe the heater core seeping. Usually used about a gallon of coolant through the winter and almost none in the summer. Thsi was driving 100+ miles per day. Got rid of the car with 256K miles due to undercarriage rust but it still ran and drove great and never overheated.

 

[ncyankee101]

I have had to add Coolant every once in a while as well. I don't think it's a block issue since my car temp is perfectly fine. My 2006 R18 is at 161K with the original block.

The block issue by itself won't cause the car to overheat. The problem is most people don't realize they have the problem until it's too late and the level has dropped low enough to cause a problem. I was curious to see if the problem gets worse with time if you keep the level up and the car doesn't overheat.

 

[ncyankee101]

Never mind, just noticed the date stamp.