[Empeg-general] Coolant leak

[Tony Fabris]

> I should be so lucky when my mechanic finds out why my car is eating a quart and a half of coolant every 300 miles.

Uh oh...

Hey, Doug, you remember when I switched from the VW to the Honda? Um, it was because of that very problem on the VW, although on a much larger scale.

The VW's head gasket had broken and was leaking coolant into the cylinders. The side effect was a sweet-smelling white steam coming out of the exhaust when starting the car. It was expensive to repair: they had to machine the head, which involved removing and disassembling it. Because it was a 16v head, they couldn't machine it without removing the valves. Plus, coolant coming out of the exhaust ruins the oxygen sensor, something that's required for the car to pass emissions (and therefore be re-saleable), so I had no choice but to have them do the repairs and replace the (not cheap) oxygen sensor if I didn't want to junk the car.

And after the repair, I figured everything would be OK. But then I noticed that the engine temperature was creeping up 20 degrees more than it was supposed to ever get. And this was on a cool day. It was on that very day that I took the VW to the Honda dealership and let them give me a couple hundred dollars towards a trade-in.

You should have seen me dismantling the car and removing all the stereo equipment in the Honda dealer's parking lot. :-)

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<A HREF="http://www.jps.net/tfabris" target="_new">Tony Fabris</A>_