The wife has one of these and it had been dumping oil on the drive. Had a good look round the engine and could see no evidence of any oil escaping,except for an oily mess on the top of the radiator. I then took off the top of the expansion bottle and out spewed like a volcano black filth, a mixture of water and oil. My immediate thought was head gasket or head had gone, very expensive. The car however was running fine, no overheating or lack of power, everything normal. I then spoke with a friend who is in the trade and he said he had thought it may be the oil cooler. He asked around his pug contacts and they confirmed this as a possibility. Get on with the job then sir and £80 later job done. It still appears to be leaking coolant, which is now grey rather than black although i would expect this as although the system was well flushed out the radiator has not been changed.
My question to the forum iswhy should it stil be leaking coolant from the overflow of the expansion bottle? Any ideas chaps please
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Anybody any ideas?????????
Please
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OK. So you've had the oil cooler replaced that sits just under the oil filter? Then they flushed and re-filled the coolant? And now the coolant still looks dirty (ie not nice blue antifreeze colour)?
When does it leak from the overflow? Is this the system with a rad cap and no header tank?
I wonder if when they re-filled the system they bled out all the air carefully? Also perhaps it was overfilled with coolant and now it is finding a natural level.
DW
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My C5 has had coolant problems for the past 3-4 months - basically throwing it out at the header tank. I've had a new water pump, new radiator and new thermostat and the dealer is adamant it's not the head gasket. Sequence of events -
Water pump replaced - header tank empty again within days - took it back.
Rad / thermostat replaced - header tank empty again within days - this time decided to log the date/mileage and amount of coolant added.
Pattern started to develop of losing about half a litre every 180-200 miles.
Then about 3 weeks ago it suddenly stopped losing coolant! I''ve now done about 1500 miles since the last top up and all (seems!) well.
All of this is very confusing - and I may still land up with a head gasket yet - but what I'm fairly sure about is that they don't like to be overfilled - this will simply chuck all the excess out anyway. Also, I've a feeling that there's been an airlock of some sort either from job1 or job 2 and it has only just found its way out naturally.
Try not overfilling the header tank and give it a few weeks with regular top ups to see if it bleed itself 'naturally'.
Graeme
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These engines are notorious for air locks, due to the design of the cooling system and any significant drop in the coolant level can easily be mistaken as a radiator leak or head gasket failure, when it is often down to an air lock within the system as a result of the system not being bled correctly when filling. A blowing head gasket on a 1.9TD or HDi normally results in coolant being forced out through the radiator cap under excessive pressure, and rarely results in coolant/oil cross contamination until the head gasket fails totally.
Martin
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