trailblazin

Hi Guys,

After I had done a service at 30,000 km, I had parked my car on a slope. Came back a few mins later to see that there was a little pool of coolant dripping down on the road. And if you were wondering, I have never had an accident before.

I took it to the service centre and they looked at it and said that there is no leak detected and that it must have leaked because the guy who serviced the car must have overfilled the coolant. So I checked the level of coolant that was in the reservoir and I noticed that it was at the half position (half way between the min level and max level). So it makes me wonder how did it leak so much. After this incident, this never happened again....until a few days ago.

Fast forward to today. Did my 40,000 km service a few days back and I parked my car after a very short drive from my house to the underground parking in my office and later when I returned to the car, I noticed again a small pool of coolant under the car.

Points to note:
- Each time it happened, it was a few days after a service
- In both instances, after the leak, the coolant level goes to a halfway point between max and min (on the coolant reservoir)
- The coolant can be seen to be leaking from the cap of the reservoir (see the picture attached)

So has anyone faced something similar? Considering taking the car to the service centre again in the hope of finding a solution. Quite concerned as I do quite a lot of long distance driving in the middle of the desert and the last thing I need is to be stranded in the middle of the desert

Thanks in advance!

p.s. I would be happy to post some more pics if the current picture is not sufficient.

MadMax07SL

Perhaps a bad radiator cap valve, they should just replace the cap first chance see if that resolves your problem. It's spring loaded, designed to release pressure into that overflow, as they get old they don't work so well. Being the car is so young, may just be defective. Should be covered under traditional warrantee. If out of warrantee, the cap couldn't be more then $20 best guess.

Randy

First thing I would do is check the coolant level in the coolant reservoir after the car has
been off for more then 12 hours. The reservoir should be at the Min line or lower. If
it is higher then most likely the coolant level is too high and when you drive the
car the coolant heats up and expands. It expands to the point where it overflows from
the coolant reservoir. My guess is at service time the person doing the service adds to much water or coolant to the reservoir.

lightonthehill

Most service techs tend to fill any fluid reservoir to the 'full' mark. After several years of always using the same dealer for service, I have them trained to have the oil level halfway between 'low' and 'full' after each oil change (which works for me because my Maxima does not use any oil between changes), and the radiator overflow reservoir fluid level at the 'low' mark after each service. That way, I don't get coolant on the garage floor after a hard drive in summer heat. I do let them fill the brake fluid reservoir and the power steering fluid reservoir to the full mark and the tires to 36 psi. I have no idea where they leave the CVT fluid level. I leave all CVT decisions to the dealer's tech.

trailblazin

Thanks everyone for your insights. As rightly pointed out, it does seem like the guys at the service center always topped up the coolant all the way till the max line. This is probably why it used to overflow once I drive the car. Currently, at resting temperature (after leaving the car all night until morning), the level is at halfway point as seen in the above picture, which I understand from the above posts is still considerably high and can cause an overflow.