Coolant all over the car engine bay.

[BritManToo]

20 hours ago, Packer said:

Oil and all other fluids checked and are okay.

 

He said it started getting extra noisy around one month ago

 

Not easy to tell if it is just the fanbelt, or something inside. 

 

A loud whirring sound, that seems to get higher in terms of volume and pitch when you step on the gas. 

 

Broken turbo!

[Packer]

It's definitely leaking coolant. I'm not sure how many KM he drove it since I last saw it.

 

The plastic reserve tank is down around one inch, and:

 

 

[Yellowtail]

Have the engine cleaned, drive a few kms and look for leaks. 

[Yellowtail]

Has any work been done on the vehicle?

 

Do we have any idea how long it has been leaking? 

 

Could be the water pump leaking and making the noise, but the noise may or may not be related to the leak. 

 

How tight is the belt? 

 

I would oil the tensioning pulley and see it the noise changes before I pulled the water-pump. It's been a long time since I had a water pump go out, but as I remember, once they get noisy, they do not last long. 

[Packer]

2 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Has any work been done on the vehicle?

 

Do we have any idea how long it has been leaking? 

 

No, and no.

 

2 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

How tight is the belt? 

 

Tight.

 

I sprayed the belt with water for one minute whilst running with no change of sound.

 

I topped up the reserve and slowly drove it 15km to a local mechanic that is apparently reputable. Let's see. No coolant hitting the ground, just being sprayed around the engine bay in small amounts. There was no fresh spray visible after driving the 15km. Hopefully it's just a worn seal or pipe. Though if it is the mechanic won't profit off that too much, so one never knows what they're going to do or declare. 

[Packer]

The list has been delivered. Standard 15 yr old Japanese saloon. 

 

New radiator <4k

One new engine mount 2.4k

Tension belt assembly 2.3k

Coolant 0.6k

Oil and filter 1.5k

 

Around 10.5k

 

Guess it sounds about right if one engine mount failed and the radiator ended up with a slight crack.

[Yellowtail]

37 minutes ago, Packer said:

The list has been delivered. Standard 15 yr old Japanese saloon. 

 

New radiator <4k

One new engine mount 2.4k

Tension belt assembly 2.3k

Coolant 0.6k

Oil and filter 1.5k

 

Around 10.5k

 

Guess it sounds about right if one engine mount failed and the radiator ended up with a slight crack.

Sounds reasonable to me. 

[Packer]

It was done a while ago. I took it for a drive today, what a difference. Much smoother, quieter and seems faster as (presumably) due to the new engine mount, there are much less vibrations and shakes etc in the 90-110kph range. Feels like a new car. If not bothered with bells and whistles those middle-aged Jap saloons are hard to beat for value. 

[Jeff the Chef]

30 minutes ago, Packer said:

It was done a while ago. I took it for a drive today, what a difference. Much smoother, quieter and seems faster as (presumably) due to the new engine mount, there are much less vibrations and shakes etc in the 90-110kph range. Feels like a new car. If not bothered with bells and whistles those middle-aged Jap saloons are hard to beat for value. 

 

Good news, round £250 to fix, cheap as chips, rust was always the killer in Europe, not so much here, mechanically always sound.

[Packer]

52 minutes ago, Jeff the Chef said:

 

Good news, round £250 to fix, cheap as chips, rust was always the killer in Europe, not so much here, mechanically always sound.

 

Yeah, I think the guy paid around 400k for it 10 years ago when it was around 5 years old. Nothing but servicing and the odd new part such as this radiator, engine mounts, I think he said he got a new aircon unit put in a number of years ago. I reckon it will last another 10-20 years for the old guy if he's still around with just annual servicing and general bits and pieces every few years. I doubt he needs all the electric bells and whistles new cars are laden with. 

[Jeff the Chef]

52 minutes ago, Packer said:

 

Yeah, I think the guy paid around 400k for it 10 years ago when it was around 5 years old. Nothing but servicing and the odd new part such as this radiator, engine mounts, I think he said he got a new aircon unit put in a number of years ago. I reckon it will last another 10-20 years for the old guy if he's still around with just annual servicing and general bits and pieces every few years. I doubt he needs all the electric bells and whistles new cars are laden with. 

 

That's the problem now, all the electrics are a problem to fix because they are all integrated to a central computer system on the car, so most cheap fixes need the diagnostics of the main dealers to find the problem, it's OK buying new until the warranty runs out then it starts to cost.