Xrandomshotx
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I have a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am GT 3.4L SFI with a small coolant problem. To start, every now and then when I turn off the car and walk away Ill come back to a small puddle of what smells like condenser water, but has the texture of coolant. Today I walked out of Auto Zone, getting a new o2 sensor, and there was a massive puddle of coolant, you could see the green in it and smell the coolant the second you walked out of the door.
I found a hose linkage that was probably cracked beforehand, because when I tightened the hose down it just twisted off. That was repaired today, however that was on the drivers side of the car near the center of the engine against the firewall. The linkage was for the return on engine side of the heater core.
The puddle I'm seeing is dripping from the inside area of the passenger tire. These cars do have "surge tanks" and not traditional reservoir, the surge tank is almost above where the coolant was leaking from. They have a purge line coming off of the top of the tank near the threads for the cap. There was no coolant whatsoever on the inside of the engine area anywhere near the surge tank, or reservoir. If it had purged there would be coolant on the inside of my engine compartment.
Lastly, about 3 weeks ago I pulled my dipstick for the engine oil and it was almost triple the level its supposed to be, and seemed watery. My dad said it smelt vaguely like coolant. I took it down and had the oil changed and nobody told me anything, even though I asked if it seemed watery and what the problem may be. I generally have to add a little coolant once a week but not much.
Now I know I had a small coolant leak due to fitting that finally broke, but thats now fixed. Since there was no coolant anywhere near my surge tank what could the problem be? I was told by a couple mechanics that I "may or may not" have a leaky head gasket, whatever kind of answer that is...Other than stripping it down and replacing all the gaskets is there any other reason that it would leak that much coolant. And if coolant and oil is mixing is that for sure a head gasket problem or are there other scenarios that can cause this?? Any help is appreciated and thank you ahead of time.
The car runs at constant normal temp, has never ran even hot, much less overheated. There is no smoke whatsoever, exhaust, cat, manifolds, heads, or otherwise. And the dipstick is not milky at all, just like thin oil.
I found a hose linkage that was probably cracked beforehand, because when I tightened the hose down it just twisted off. That was repaired today, however that was on the drivers side of the car near the center of the engine against the firewall. The linkage was for the return on engine side of the heater core.
The puddle I'm seeing is dripping from the inside area of the passenger tire. These cars do have "surge tanks" and not traditional reservoir, the surge tank is almost above where the coolant was leaking from. They have a purge line coming off of the top of the tank near the threads for the cap. There was no coolant whatsoever on the inside of the engine area anywhere near the surge tank, or reservoir. If it had purged there would be coolant on the inside of my engine compartment.
Lastly, about 3 weeks ago I pulled my dipstick for the engine oil and it was almost triple the level its supposed to be, and seemed watery. My dad said it smelt vaguely like coolant. I took it down and had the oil changed and nobody told me anything, even though I asked if it seemed watery and what the problem may be. I generally have to add a little coolant once a week but not much.
Now I know I had a small coolant leak due to fitting that finally broke, but thats now fixed. Since there was no coolant anywhere near my surge tank what could the problem be? I was told by a couple mechanics that I "may or may not" have a leaky head gasket, whatever kind of answer that is...Other than stripping it down and replacing all the gaskets is there any other reason that it would leak that much coolant. And if coolant and oil is mixing is that for sure a head gasket problem or are there other scenarios that can cause this?? Any help is appreciated and thank you ahead of time.
The car runs at constant normal temp, has never ran even hot, much less overheated. There is no smoke whatsoever, exhaust, cat, manifolds, heads, or otherwise. And the dipstick is not milky at all, just like thin oil.