When I turn my car on sometimes the light will come on immediatly but sometimes I can drive it and it wont come on at all. I've checked the coolant level and it is full, and it doesnt seem to be leaking anywhere. Could it be the sender? Or does that warning light control some other part of the cooling system? Any help would be great!
Thanks!~

 

How many miles are on your car?
Mine is at 76 K and it started doing this. I checked and I'm getting tiny bubbles.

If you cant find a leak anywhere, smell the exhaust, and if you can, take and have your system pressure tested.

 

Hopefully you're checking the coolant level at the filler neck, not the overflow tank...?

 

My car has 87k miles on it. I check the level in the resivour and its slightly above the full, then I check the filler cap and there is no coolant in sight. Could there be a clogg between the the resivour and rest of the system? Should I just add more coolant to the filler cap?

 

Add coolant to the filler neck (not the reservoir), and if you still lose coolant after driving around for a bit, you've got leakage problems or worse, o-ring problems (meaning rebuild time).

 

Hey thanks alot for your help. Does the coolant all return to the reservoir when it cools down? Because there was nothing in the filler neck. Ive got one other problem. Yesterday I started the car up and smelled raw gas so I got out to take a look and there was fuel dripping out the bottom of the car. I think its probably a cracked hose but do you have any other ideas?

 

Yikes...that could be a serious problem, with either your fuel lines, or injectors. I wouldn't be driving your car anywhere until the source of the fuel leak is traced out and found (if it is indeed fuel).

 

Alright, so I fixed the coolent problem. Now to the fuel problem. The leak is coming from somewhere above the turbos but I can't tell where. Anyone have any ideas?

 

fuel leak is most likely coming from the pulsation dampner thats attached to your secondary fuel rail or the line/banjo bolt feeding it.
Good luck,
Fritz

 

93MB how did you fix your coolent problem?? I also have the same problem...

 

I first filled up the filler neck so it and the small black reservoir were full. Then I checked to make sure that the hose that connects the main reservoir to the small reservoir wasn't clogged. When you turn on the car the coolent will circulate though the rest of the engine, so make sure to top off the filler neck after it cools down. Then I found out that the main reservoir dumps coolent when it is over filled so I syphened out all the old coolent and put in new. That seemed to shut that damn warning light right up. Hopefully that will help.

 

if your problem comes back, check the hose from your filler neck to your reservoir. i had the same problem and it turned out the hose was pinched a little bit. when the car got hot, the coolant would flow into the res. because the system was under pressure, but when the car cooled back down, the coolant would not flow back because the vacuum that was created would close the kink in the hose completely.

 

Yep. That's proper function.

93MB, that plastic reservoir you first dealt with is the expansion tank. It's not a catch tank.

If your fluid keeps building up in the expansion tank and does not return, check the return hose, as legal-z said.

Now as far as the fuel issue goes, you said you saw fuel dripping from the turbos. What lead you to believe this is fuel in the first place?

If it is indeed fuel, don't drive the car at all. Fuel leaking onto the turbo manifold is guaranteeing your car will burn to the ground.

 

add more coolent in, from the filler neck..... and run the engine while you filling..... it helps !!!

 

Intermittant occurances of low coolant light and buzzer going on for maybe 20 seconds, then stopping. Temperature guage ok. Overflow reservoir had fluid and stays full. No plugged return line apparent, since no suction on removing engine coolant cap. Fluid there was down a bit. Topped it of and will see if this stops it for a while. But the symptoms suggest a coolant pressure leak somewhere that is causing the overflow not to return to the engine when cool.
I saw a second gen mention possible water pump problems. Any good culprits to blame on a third gen?

 

the cap. i bet the cap is bad. it will hold pressure and not leak but when the engine cools down it lets the vaccum leak out instead of pulling coolant back into the radiator

 

I had a crazy experience on wednesday. I drove all morning and shut off the car, then I turned on the accesories and the coolant buzzard came on stayed on for a while but when I cranked the car on it went off. Then it was fine most of the day (drove about 100 miles that day) and it happened again so I checked and it needed just a little bit of coolant so i filled it about less than half a water bottle.
Then when I got home the light came on again and when I oppened the cap(had the car on with heater going 'cuse it started to heat up a little) the coolant splashed everywhere.
I'm thinking its the thermostat but I hope nothing happened to the motor. I'll change it today after class. Anyways sorry for asking I just didn't want to start another coolant thread so I decided to jump in this one.
thanks