Car overheating and losing coolant

Asked by Duh3rd Jun 22, 2016 at 08:58 PM about the 1999 Oldsmobile Cutlass 4 Dr GL Sedan

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I have a 99 cutlass 3.1 v6. Ive had trouble in
the past with it overheating. I flushed the
radiator and resevior last weekend and
refilled. It drove fine for a week the began
overheating again and now is loosing
coolant but i have no idea where its going.
Its not under the car or in the exhaust and its
not smoking. The oil seems fine and the
coolant resevior shows no signs of oil. I
need my car please help.

103,435

KenF answered 8 years ago

It's possible to lose some coolant thru a head gasket that doesn't show up in the oil or out the exhaust. A pressure test on the cylinders will reveal that type of leak. Another possibility is your coolant loss is from the overflow hose to the ground while your driving, overheating is causing coolant to overflow to the reservoir then from there to the ground. You may want to check the water pump, if the impeller fins are worn to nothing then it's just not pumping coolant sufficiently. Check the pressure in the rad hoses and heater hoses with the engine running. A new thermostat and rad cap is always a good place to start as well, rad caps should be replaced every few years anyhow, a bad one that can't maintain proper pressure may be letting coolant overflow to the reservoir when it shouldn't.

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