air bubbles appearing in cooling
 

It seems like even after I try to get the air out of my cooling system, it still appears. A week ago, my coolant buzzer went on. I pulled over, let some pressure out, and attempted to burp system. When I say burp, I mean it is a little difficult given the upper radiator hose that I have. Car is going good for about a week until today, when the coolant buzzer went on again. I checked the coolant resevoir, and it is filled to the top. I release some pressure, refill coolant, and drive off. Is there something I can do so that I don't get stuck in this cycle of releasing air, buzzer buzzes, release air, etc.?
btw, I got the hose from autozone. It was the only one available, and it had to replace mine that burst and had to get me home 150 miles away. I can't squeeze it.

it could be that your getting air from a leak somewere.....and you should change that autozone hose,, get some mildy soapy water and poar it on the hoses to see if there is any bubbling if there is you found your leak, if not then, still change the autozone hose.


autozone= crap and a half
or
autozone=temporary until you can get better, but be fast

hmm you could have a bad coolant seal, does your exhaust smell sweet?

yeah.. hopefully its not your water control rings.. ways to check.. smell your oil. does it smell like coolant? second. smell coolant. does it smell like gas or oil? if not then so far so good. try changing out your rad caps to fresh new ones. drain out your overflow bottle and check it in a week. now the scary blown motor test. start your car with the water neck rad cap off. top off water. can you see bubbles forming and coming to the surface?
if so then the motor is kissed. hope its the rad cap

thx guys, I will try the suggestions. I just did an oil change because I read that somehow low oil could trigger the add coolant buzzer too. Oil was charcoal black

Sounds a whole lot like bad coolant seals. When the car is cold, take off the rad cap then start it. Do you see bubbles in the coolant? If so then your coolant seals are bad. Tiny bubbles indicate a minor leak, large ones indicate imminent failure.

on another post, it was said that if you have bad coolant seals inside your engine you would see a combination of oil and coolant. Isn't that usually the case?

as far as your issue goes I have and had a similar problem. Except I havent finished inspecting all hoses.

i had a coolant seal blow on me...sucked....but ill be back running here in the next 2 weeks :) , but sounds to me like its a bad coolant seal...sorry bro.

You say your reservoir was full but system coolant was low? Have you checked the condition of your radiator caps? what about the hose that leads to the reservoir? If any of these leak you could suck air into the system instead of sucking coolant back in from the reservoir.

Now there's a good answer! Check the simple stuff first, why is everyone so quick to predict catastrophic doom? I would definitely check the cap, and like others said try to find some leaks. After you have driven for a while, get under the hood while it is still hot, see if you can spot smoking coolant traces, etc. I know I had a hairline crack on the underside of the plastic thermostat pipe the s5's have, it was tough to notice right away.

If all that fails, then start looking toward the bad stuff and doing the stuff stevensimon mentioned.

the engine will not suck coolant back from the overflow tank. the only time the tank is connected to the rest of the engine is when the system is pressurized enough to force the rad cap open to let coolant into the tank. a proper system will never work backwards. its a one way door.

Not true, it will indeed let off pressure through the cap and into the expansion tank when coolant is hot and pressurized to a certain point (what the cap is rated to). However, when the coolant and the engine cool off, there will be a reverse effect of the expansion, it will contract. The vacuum this causes within the cooling system, will pull the needed coolant back into the system via the expansion tank/radiator cap. That is why the hose from the cap to the tank leads toward the bottom of the tank.

So, no, the engine specifically is not sucking coolant in, but the cooling system itself will, releasing pressure when heated and drawing in coolant after cool down.

Six has a point. I had/have a similar issue where my resovoir is about 90% full due to a leak I suppose. Once the car is cooled down, I take a look at the resovoir and its practically empty. Im not sure how it happens but 9 out of 10 it happens.

I already explained how it happens, once the car cools the pressure in the system decreases, this creates a vacuum and pulls in the needed coolant. It is how most cooling systems operate. In the case you mention, where there is a leak, it has more coolant it needs to draw into the system. It's nothing magical. :D

If the radiator cap is not functioning properly, it could affect the systems ability to draw in or release pressure/coolant. It is also a pretty easy component to test, not to mention very inexpensive, which is why I liked RoughRex's original suggestion.

Any update on this problem? (I hate never knowing what exactly was wrong)

yep six is correct