The coolant icon lights up when I start the car after the engine is cool..Wondering Why? Is that normal?

Asked by Echoing Jun 21, 2013 at 01:02 PM about the Toyota ECHO

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

2005 automatic ECHO- recently purchased from a private seller with no previous records.
This car and these type of icons are new to me.
I've been driving this car about a week and the light comes on every time I start up but after I drive in 4 blocks it goes off.
I checked the coolant and it's full- almost to the cap.
Thanks!

6 Answers

95

Your owner's manual may have some information about that specific condition. Check out page 87 at the following link: http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM52598U/pdf/01omso ur/2005/05echoom/16.pdf The owners manual seems to suggest that the blue light will stay on until the car warms up to normal operating temperature. Based on your description of that light going out, you seem to be in the ballpark. When you say your coolant level is full, does that mean it is AT or ABOVE the "Full" line on the bottle? Overfilling the coolant could cause excessive pressure and damage your cooling system. The liquid needs room to expand into a gas and back again. If it's above the FULL line, you'll need to drain some of the coolant. Otherwise, it sounds like everything is normal.

6 people found this helpful.

dispose of the coolant in an environmentally responsible fashion..either put it right back into the bottle or bring it to an autoparts store...they are always happy to get old coolant...they can run their "rejuvenating" machine and resell the stuff~

3 people found this helpful.

there's a very good reason why the bottle is translucent...so you can SEE the level in there from the outside of the bottle~

2 people found this helpful.
40

Excessive coolant in the recovery bottle will not hurt anything. With an overfilled recovery bottle, the worst case scenario is that it will puke coolant onto the ground as the coolant gets hot and expands into the bottle. Your actual cooling system NEEDS to be full to the top. The system will not "build excess pressure and damage your cooling system" unless you have an issue like a blown head gasket, bad radiator cap, or stuck thermostat. The cap is designed to vent the pressure...into the recovery bottle, and then as it cools and contracts, the little check valve in the cap opens to allow the system to draw the coolant from the bottle back into the cooling system. The caps have a P.S.I. rating, usually somewhere between 13 and 18 P.S.I. Yes, the coolant will expand & contract as it heats and cools, but the system is pressurized to PREVENT the coolant from becoming a gas...pressurizing the system raises the boiling point of the coolant.

4 people found this helpful.

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