Low coolant. No leak?

I had a similar issue, had to use a UV dye kit from Amazon. Turned out to be a very tiny leak midway down the radiator on my '12. Corrosion.

Yeah, I checked from the top with a very strong light with the engine cover off both yesterday and again today and could see absolutely nothing neither at the bottom tray nor anywhere near the water pump or hoses. The coolant level also has not changed after one day and a a couple of short drives.

I cannot check from underneath where I am today. But it will be easy to check when I get home.

As for distilled water, yes. Unless it's an emergency, you should use distilled or "demineralized" water. You don't want deposits. Not the end of the world for small amounts, of course.

I could easily just have added distilled water to top it off, but I wanted to play it safe and also was worried I may need more than just a little on the trip back so I got the OEM coolant from the dealer. The coolant is concentrated (100%) and should be diluted to between 50% and 70%. I ended up adding about 1.5 cups of coolant and a cup of water to bring it to the top mark. Still no leaks I can see and level is holding. I have the better part of 2 gallons of mixed coolant for the trip back, but I hope not to need it.

To be clear, the temperature was always steady and I only get the warning once yesterday at start-up. I shut it off immediately and only started it again after topping it off. Obviously no warnings at all now.

Mine was always fine temperature wise. I never saw any coolant anywhere. I knew the water pump replacement was coming just based off of reading posts here, so when the warning light came on, I looked it over for anything obvious, then I topped it off and started ordering parts while continuing to drive as normal for a couple of weeks. When I got the old pump off, there was semi encrusted coolant on the bottom of it.

A water pump failure is bad but won’t blow up your engine in a matter of moments like a catastrophic crossover pipe failure. With a bad pump, you see the temperature go up, pull over and get your car towed. It’s especially minor if you just have a leak. But yes, it sucks.

If the pipe gives out and you dump all your coolant in 10 seconds, that is really bad.

My 911 Turbo had a weak point like that that always kept me up at night. It never happened to me, luckily. But when it happened to guys at the track, they had to have a response time of seconds to avoid blowing up an engine costing $50k+.

I've had two warnings so far. The first I topped off, looked around down below, found nothing, and a month later now I have it again. I've watched the temperature gauge and it's never crossed over the halfway mark. I guess it's time to get the parts list together and replace it. Is there a good parts list with everything you want to replace while you are there?

Made it home with no issues. Coolant level exactly as when I topped it off and no visible leaks from the top. I will put it up on the lift tomorrow.

Quijote said:

Made it home with no issues. Coolant level exactly as when I topped it off and no visible leaks from the top. I will put it up on the lift tomorrow.

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Interested in hearing what you find, if anything.

Well, I put it up on the lift, and the answer is that I found nothing. No trace of a leak.

I removed the two metal covers, did a bunch of cleaning (after all, I just drove 700 miles through salty northern New England and Canada) and I could not even get a clear view of the water pump. I took the best photos I could. The pan didn't have a single trace of a dried up drop of coolant. No dripping residue on any components near or below the water pump. Same story as the view from above.

I cleaned up what I could, hit surface rust spots with rust reformer, applied anti-seize to the screws and put everything back together.

At this point I'll just keep an eye on it and see when and if the coolant level drops.

If there's no obvious leak, consider the sensor. Mine was indicating low coolant but no leaks… Requires replacement of the coolant reservoir but easier/cheaper than a water pump.

the12vman said:

Requires replacement of the coolant reservoir but easier/cheaper than a water pump.

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Someone in this or a related thread mentioned that you don't even have to replace the entire reservoir. Replacing the $8 sensor will do the trick (if you have confirmed that it is a bad sensor, obv).