Need help/advice on car losing coolant all because of an ignorant emissions operator?
 

Hi all. Need your advice if the emissions operator could have caused my car to lose lots of coolant.

Here's what happened:

1. Gas cap checked
2. Moved forward to Dynamometer. Front wheels over it.
3. Operator removed the wideband sensor(removed stock O2 sensor) power plug and inserted another plug to test RPM's
4. Revved the car three times(no need for that)
5. After checking RPM's, connects the sniffer to the tailpipe
7. Again rev's the car for no reason
8. I walk over to the driver's side and inform him that he unplugged the wideband sensor's power and that it can't read it without it being plugged in. He tells me that he knows what he's doing and let him do his job.
9. I move back to the waiting area
9. Operator realizes the car isn't moving and tells one of his co-worker's who put the car in there?
10. Then he moves the car's rear wheel drive over the Mustang Dynamometer
11. Operator then rev's the car again and he's going 29MPH for over 1 minute. Then he slowly moves the car to 25.6MPH and stays there.
12. It doesn't work so he removes the RPM plug in the cigarette lighter and gets another plug (one plug, black)
13. He looks inside the engine bay to find a place for the black plug but can't find it
14. He then tells another co-worker to bring another plug that he plugs into the battery terminals
15. He incorrectly connects the positive and negative terminals and nothing's working
16. I move over to him and show him which terminals are the positive and negative
17. He switches the connections
18. He then goes into the car and proceeds
19. Again, he drives too fast (29MPH) for at least a minute and then slows down to 25MPH
20. After 5 minutes or so, he stops
21. He tells me to go inside the car
22. He prints the paper and gives me a handout for failed emissions
23. He advises me that I should go see one of the specialists and get it fixed. Once fixed, I can test one more time for free
24. After he explains my choices, I notice my car's water temperature is at 101 degrees celsius. My car is always supposed to be at 83-89 degrees celsius.
25. I turn on my fans on full with temperature set to highest to dissipate the heat.
26. I continue driving for less than 1/2 mile and eventually it goes back to 83 degrees celsius.
27. I drive to my work and at the end of the day, I see all this coolant spilled from under my car.
28. It takes 64 oz. of water to fill it back up and I drive it back home where I leave it for a couple of hours.
29. I go outside to go to dinner and see coolant again spilling from my car.

My question is, can you unplug the wideband long enough (15-30 minutes) for it overheat the engine, thereby causing the coolant seals to cook and leak?

I've never seen my car go over 100 degrees Celsius before and I'm seriously thinking about taking legal actions.

At this point I'm going to do the following, get a compression check of the engine and find out where it's leaking.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks

Mike

No.

Nothing wrong with 100 C. In stock form, the fans don't even kick on low until 105 C.

It doesn't sound like he did anything wrong tbh. Being from the uk i don't understand the intricacies of the smog test, but nothing you've described really rings alarm bells. Sounds to me like you had an issue which has concidentally appeared - usualy suspects are blocked rad, failing pressure cap, thermostat, or the dreaded coolant seals.

Ast?

I'm really hoping it's not the seals. I'm going to park it and when I get a chance to get to it I'll see where it's leaking from.

Thanks all! You've made my mind at ease now.

AST is okay though. Nothing leaking and it's an aluminum one.

Losing a coolant seal internally in the engine wouldn't cause a massive leak to the ground, it would cause coolant to burn in the combustion chamber and/or coolant and oil to mix. Check all the hoses and containers that hold coolant (overflow, radiator, ast, etc). Pull off the underpanel and look around with a flashlight. If it is as bad as you say, you will see it coming from somewhere. Also, the cooling lines to the turbos can be seen once the panel is off, perhaps one of those loosened. You will have to do some investigating, but a temp of 101C is really no big deal at all, even at zero pressure a coolant/water mix isn't going to boil at that temp.

You will have to check it out and get back to us with what you find.

I hate emission checks. Once I had this chick there pull my car up to the rollers as if it were front wheel drive and by the time I looked over she was just hitting the gas. I almost had a heart attack. It jumped forward and bottomed out on the rollers. It was in an FC. No damage. Thank God we don't have that crap anymore. These people know nothing about cars. More liberal bullshit.