I own a 2000 nissan maxima se. I am seeing my engine overheating in 20 degree weather here in chicago. I had taken it to a ac repair shop here and according to him the there was no antifreeze in radiator at all and hence no heat also.
My antifreeze container is above max and i see the green color stay intact. He said it might be head gasket leak , but i don see any symptoms of it. I checked the oil dip stick and removed the engine cap, no white residue or milky stuff. Also there are no leaks and he did check the hoses, no leaks..
He did fill up antifreeze that day in radiator and there was some heat available. but again now same problem.

Any help would be gladly appreciated!!

 

Open the cap. The coolant might be gone, again.

And you have to bleed the air out. There will be tons in there, since it was empty...

Good luck, driving without coolant usually means warped heads.

 

Thanks for the reply. Doesn't the warped head result in coolant mixing with oil?

 

Not necessarily , HG/head issues can cause multiple symptoms. That's just a very common one. Coolant could be leaking into the cylinder, but not fast enough to blow a lot of steam out the exhaust.

 

Hmmm. Warped head means huge repair costs!! Any guesses??

 

Engine swap, but that's not even straight forward b/c you won't get a good one (let alone cheap) that's 02-03 (precats ate em up and very expensive). 6th gens have bad chain guides/shoes (would have to inspect that it's been fixed before) and 5.7 swap needs a few modifications.

Bleed the air and see what happens.

Something was leaking before b/c the coolant went somewhere.

 

Have you ever had the system pressure checked to check for leaks?