Single Mother Needs Help Badly With Coolant Problem

[1_mad_daddy]

Hi All,
First, thanks for your help with this car. I have a 1999 Olds Alero 3.4 V6 with 144,000 miles on it. Just recently I thought I had better check my antifreeze and it was low so I bought a bottle and dumped it into the car. I drove about 10 miles and the car overheated spilling all of my antifreeze on the ground. I bought more and it did the same thing again.

I checked my oil dipstick to see if it looked at all milky and it's normal oil. Checked the oil cap and it looks foamy for lack of better description. The entire head was redone and all gaskets replaced at 88,000 miles. Could someone please offer me some insight on what may be causing this to happen every time I dump antifreeze it dumps all over the ground after driving for a short distance. I am a single mom and have nobody to help me so I'm desperate to try and figure this out myself before I go into a garage looking like a blinded deer in headlights lol.

Thanks Everyone
1_mad_daddy now a single mom and mad lol

[maxwedge]

Many things can cause this, the cooling system must be checked out, it could be air bound, the thermostat could be not opening, you could have bad head gaskets, these issues all require normal diagnostic steps. Post back if you are attempting this yourself.

[1_mad_daddy]

Hi,
Believe it or not, yes I am attempting this on my own. My dad always told me if I was going to own a car, I needed to know how to do things on my own so here I go. I'm a bit of a tomgirl you can say.
Thanks Again

[BigN26]

My son has the same car we purchased about 2 years ago. I had the same problem and swapped out the thermostat and water pump with no luck. It would still spill all the coolant out once it warmed up. I finally swapped the radiator cap and it fixed it. Now 2 years later, it began to overheat again. This time it looks to be the head gasket.

Try the cap. for $5.00 you may fix your problem....good luck.

[maxwedge]

Fill it, bleed the air out of it thru the bleeder on the thermostat housing. Let it run, see if the radiator hoses get pressurized right after a cool start. And yes the radiator cap can cause this, cheap investment to start with. Post back results.

[nqc2k]

Did you put anti-freeze in, or "Dex-Cool"? Not sure if that would cause these problems, but I know your not supposed to mix them.

[1_mad_daddy]

Hi All,
First I really want to thank you all for the great replies. I am truly touched to think that there are people in this world willing to help others out espicially a mom.

Secondly, I replaced the rad cap and I had heat--awesome so I thought when the nice hot air all of a sudden went totally cold. I reved up the rpms and had heat again, and now it's totally gone. This am while listening to the car after driving the kids to school, I can hear like a clunking type of sound coming from under the hood? So now my original thought last night of maybe just a thermostat is now a water pump going bad?

What do you think? Thanks :-)
mommy_of_2

[1_mad_daddy]

After reading on here lots yesterday I deceided against dex-cool and just went with a 50/50 pre-mix that is suppose to be good for all car makes and models.

Originally Posted by nqc2k

Did you put anti-freeze in, or "Dex-Cool"? Not sure if that would cause these problems, but I know your not supposed to mix them.

[GTP Dad]

The Prestone is an excellent choice. However, the 50/50 is an expensive price to pay for water. Next time just mix it yourself using the empty 50/50 bottle. Just pour in half a bottle of antifreeze and fill the other half with water. I am not trying to insult your intelligence just trying to save you some money!

As for the knocking you hear from under the hood, does it make the noise when you are sitting still or while driving? If it happens while driving I suspect it is a strut. If it happens while sitting still check the tensioner pulley on the belt as the tensioner may be going bad and banging when you rev the engine!

PS. I love a woman who works on her own cars.

[1_mad_daddy]

Hi GTP,
Thanks for the tip and no insult taken. The noise is being made when the car is at an idle position. I just can't understand why I had heat, then no heat, had to rev the rpm's up, had heat again, then went to idle and no heat what so ever again. But it's not leaking antifreeze anymore, now I just have another problem, but that's life I guess lol.

I love working on cars. I can take out my fustrations and then some and I don't get any backtalk lol

Originally Posted by GTP Dad

The Prestone is an excellent choice. However, the 50/50 is an expensive price to pay for water. Next time just mix it yourself using the empty 50/50 bottle. Just pour in half a bottle of antifreeze and fill the other half with water. I am not trying to insult your intelligence just trying to save you some money!

As for the knocking you hear from under the hood, does it make the noise when you are sitting still or while driving? If it happens while driving I suspect it is a strut. If it happens while sitting still check the tensioner pulley on the belt as the tensioner may be going bad and banging when you rev the engine!

PS. I love a woman who works on her own cars.

[maxwedge]

That noise may be the coolant, again, water hammering from air trapped in ther system, there is insufficient coolant to reach the heater core at low speeds, you need to be sure the cooling system is not air bound.

[1_mad_daddy]

Hi All,
Just wanted to let you all know that I finally gave up and took the car into a mechanic. Well, it's the lower intake gasket and it's going to cost me $300-$400 to fix so needless to say it's sitting at the garage right now. Temps in Michigan are getting way too cold and that's more of a project than I am willing to take on.
Thanks for all your help you all are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now One Happy Mommy :-)

[xeroinfinity]

WOW!
$300-400 bucks, thats a great deal!

Cheapest I can do them for is about $800 .
In my area they run close to $1200-1400 at the stealership and around $1000 at the smaller shops.

Hope that works out.

[1_mad_daddy]

That's what I thought too, but he said with it just being the lower intake gasket and not the entire head, that's why it's so cheap. I just hope that once they get in there, they don't find something else wrong and then the price jumps up big time. I'll keep you all abreast of what is going on with the car.

Thanks

Originally Posted by xeroinfinity

WOW!
$300-400 bucks, thats a great deal!

Cheapest I can do them for is about $800 .
In my area they run close to $1200-1400 at the stealership and around $1000 at the smaller shops.

Hope that works out.

[jrozanc]

Originally Posted by 1_mad_daddy

Hi All,
Just wanted to let you all know that I finally gave up and took the car into a mechanic. Well, it's the lower intake gasket and it's going to cost me $300-$400 to fix so needless to say it's sitting at the garage right now. Temps in Michigan are getting way too cold and that's more of a project than I am willing to take on.
Thanks for all your help you all are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now One Happy Mommy :-)

I'm from Kalamazoo and the best prices I could get from a local mechanic ranged from $400-$700 when I had my alero. Your $300-$400 price is a frickin steal.