Missing Coolant In A Suzuki Esteem 2004

[k_nitin_r 8]

Last year, I took my Suzuki Esteem 2004 out on a drive on a rather warm day and after I parked and started up again, the engine check light was on and the temperature gauge indicated a high engine temperature. I stopped at the nearest fuel station, which was about three minutes away, at fairly low engine rpms and turned off the engine as soon as I got there. When a service technician popped the hood and looked at it, there was no coolant in the engine! The car was locked and the bonnet was shut so it's surprising that I was completely out of coolant; I didn't have any leaks either. After pouring three cans of coolant, the engine finally cooled off and I was back on my way home. I often wonder what caused the coolant to disappear/vaporize as there were no leaks or any way to tamper with the engine while the vehicle was locked. Either way, I was fortunate to not have any engine damage and so far I have had the car go over 208,000km (I loaned it out for about two years which is when it clocked most of those kilometeres; I barely would have clocked 20,000km).

[sheepdog 10]

I've been wooling this perplexing problem around in my brain ever since you posted it over a week ago. I really didn't think antifreeze could evaporate, but wasn't sure. I finally had to go to a higher automotive authority for an answer. That would be the hubby of course, he's been mechanicing since he was 3 years old. (young yes, his dad had a shop, and he started the boy out washing parts at the ripe old age of 3 years.) He tried to expain to me the details as to how the antifreeze expands and contracts and flows in and out of the reserve or overflow tank. If the levels of coolent is not maintained at the correct levels in the reserve tank, it can cause losses of coolent somehow. The reserve tank it'self could have a leak. Another problem can be a faulty radiator cap. And you mentioned there were no leaks, but there is always the possiblity that there are no apparent leaks when the car is parked and the engine is cool, but when the system gets hot and under preasure, small leaks of steam would not be noticable if they were being rapidly blown away under the car while it was traveling.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Hi!Thank you for the explanation and solving the case of the missing coolant. BTW, one thing I did have to mention is that in this part of the world they do not use anti-freeze - all that they use is distilled water. When there are desparate times, like being caught in the middle of highway with no sign of an automobile garage or a fuel station, people use bottled drinking water instead. And as a last resort, even tap water. A cousin had to drive back home with a leaking radiator caused by damaged roads hitting the underside of the vehicle (the roads connecting two different states in India are just terrible - there's a single lane for two-way traffic so the vehicles have to squeeze past one another).A three-year-old working in an automobile garage is quite remarkable. I'm pretty sure most older folk who are old enough to drive still do not know how to get their air filters out of their vehicles, how to wash the re-usable air filters, and how to drain old oil out of their engines.The expansion and contraction of water is a possible explanation of the loss of coolant, which is, simply put, distilled water. The escape of steam would be hard to observe while driving at over sixty kilometers per hour and that is a valid point. While driving in heavy rain and floods, I did see the escaping steam while at a stand-still but while moving the steam was almost invisible. While stationary, it was almost as though I was driving a steam engine rather than a car or like driving a badly damaged car in Grand Theft Auto III.