Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir

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Wed 25 Jul 2012 20:24
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - elvabanfer

My wifes 2003 Fieta 1.4 Ghia may have a problem. I've been topping the water reservoir up every week or so with coolant as it appears to have little left in it. We stopped today somewhere and I smelt hot water/coolant and saw the red liquid all over the floor. When I checked the screw reservoir cap it appeared cross threaded, so I'd obviously some how put it on wrong last time?

Not being that adept at car problems, I'm assuming that the coolant was forced out under the pressure, escaping at my dodgy cap? I'm also assuming the regular coolant filling could be down to another leak somewhere?

I've checked the oil filler cap and dipstick for white gunge and its clean as a whistle as is the reservoir, so I'm hoping the head gasket hasn't gone yet. The temperature gauge appears normal and not over heating.

The car has done 62000 miles and has been regularly serviced and looked after.

Any advice welcome thanks

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Wed 25 Jul 2012 21:21
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - Peter.N.
Screw the cap on properly and try again, if you are still loosing water the head gasket is the most likely problem - unless of course you can see a leak somewhere.
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Thu 26 Jul 2012 03:17
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - elvabanfer

If the head gasket was gone, wouldnt there be more tell tale signs? Which there isn't...

Someone asked if the fans cutting in and to be honest, I'm uncertain, so I need to check this later today. If the fans not working then wouldn't this effect things?

Furthermore, and dont want to throw a red hearing, but a few weeks ago the internal fan stopped working on settings 1-3. Obviously the variable resistor, but does this have a bearing on heat dissipation ( the internal fan that is).

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Thu 26 Jul 2012 09:16
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - madf

If the head gasket was gone, wouldnt there be more tell tale signs? Which there isn't...

You can have HG problem with no oil/water mix.

Gas into water only.

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Thu 26 Jul 2012 14:48
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - Peter.N.

The head gasket wont have 'gone' but maybe leaking which will pressurise the cooling system, the result is the water gets blown out of the filler cap or overflow. If you undo the cap when the engine is cold and it hisses that will be a sign. Try feeding the overflow pipe into a container, drive it and check for coolant.

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Thu 26 Jul 2012 14:53
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - thunderbird

The head gasket wont have 'gone' but maybe leaking

How does that work then?

A head gasket is no supposed to leak thus if its "maybe leaking" its gone and needs replacing. Simple as that.

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Thu 26 Jul 2012 20:15
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - mickyh7

Its quite common for the expansion bottle to leak on Fiesta's

Where the lower hose is attached.

You should see pink dye from the coolant around the hose join.

Very difficult to seal,maybe a new bottle is required ?

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Fri 27 Jul 2012 04:24
Ford Fiesta - Water Reservoir - elvabanfer

The reservoir doesn't hiss when the caps removed when the cars running cold, so no problem there. I believe i have found the problem though in that this plastic tank has a pin prick fracture near where the Max fill line is. The coolant is seeping out once the engine gets warm. The reason it gushed out the other day was t**tty here was filling it up AGAIN and hadn't screwed the cap on right. I have just noticed another person on here had the exact same problem and changed the tank.

I also did note that i couldnt manage to get the Rad fan to kick in? Whether this is a seperate thing all together I dont know, but when idling it never turned once. However, the temperature remained fine on the gauge.

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