klewis50

About a month and a half ago, I took my car into a shop to get an AC check. Turns out one of my radiator fans was "blowing the wrong way." Anyways, the very next day we got stuck in construction traffic and the car began to overheat. We turned the heater on, which helped, and pulled into a gas station. Added more coolant, everything was fine. We assumed maybe the shop screwed up somehow and didn't add coolant or something. We fixed the faulty radiator fan the next day and everything was great.

A few weeks goes by, the car starts to overheat. Turning the heater on did nothing and neither did driving (air flow). We pulled off, let the car sit for several hours and added a GALLON of water. Assumed there was a coolant leak. Before we could address the problem, the car overheated AGAIN just a few days later. It was bone dry, all the coolant/water had leaked. Added water/coolant to get home and try to figure out what was going on. The car sat for about a week but I had to go to the grocery store. I drove for maybe 10 minutes, parked and got out and there was a giant puddle of coolant leaking out again from underneath, passenger side.

The car is currently in the driveway. We poured water in to try to figure out where exactly it's coming from, but we have no idea. The car has to heat up first before it'll start leaking from underneath, passenger side. There is no visible leak when you're under the hood and the hoses aren't wet when it leaks. We pulled the lower radiator hose off and it was fine. Hoping to find a more knowledgeable answer before we attempt that heater hose since we don't have the tools to do it.

If anyone has any ideas of what this could possibly be, I'd be grateful. Hours and hours of Google searching is getting me no where. For the past year or so, the car seemed to have a burnt coolant smell every time you'd get out of the car, obviously a leak. But WHERE? D:

Thank you in advance!

devildawg3267

What year and type is it?

klewis50

Whoops I had it in the title but deleted it.
It's a 97 Accord, 160k miles


We put it up on a jack to see better and tried the water/leak test again. Let the car run for a long time, but no leak. I drove it around for 20 minutes and temperature gauge stayed in the normal zone. Got home, parked, nothing.

I hate cars.

nus_dogg

Hate intermittent leaks.

holmesnmanny

Buy or rent a coolant pressure tester. Use it. Fix the leak where you find it.

Or you can idle the car. Take your hand and gently wiggle radiator hoses until you find the leak. Fix the leak by replacing whatever hoses are bad/leaking and buy a set of hose clamps to use in place of the old ones that are probably not going to seal the same as before.

klewis50

This might be a dumb question, but how do you use the pressure tester?

holmesnmanny

It hooks up to the radiator cap and puts pressure on the system so that the leak will manifest itself.