Low coolant, empty reservoir- RESOLVED

SMH. The good thing about your posts are they are consistent.

 

Are you saying I’m spreading lies? It’s so true. Guess you can’t handle the truth. Half the country can’t either.

 

Half the country? Huh?

 

Which half?

 

Yes the older higher mileage trucks with no issues is what I pray for haha.

 

Well it cant be us dudes

 

So here’s the only good pic I was able to get. This is from underneath the truck, passenger side looking towards the drivers side, rear of engine. Best way I can describe it. If you look up where the coolant bypass is located, you can crawl under and look in that direction and probably find it.

 

Thank you!

 

Checking in,
I dropped it off at the dealer yesterday and they couldn’t find any pressure dips on the coolant system test. They said they checked all the “normal” leak areas. Nothing seen leaking. I will ask about the rear coolant bypass tube since you can’t really see it without an endoscope. I had them gas check the cabin to see if it was coming through the heater core. Nothing showing up. I sent them photos of each time it was low with dates attached and told them about the two liters of coolant that disappeared mysteriously. After checking the cooling system with no hot results they used this information and contacted Toyota asking for further instruction. Waiting to hear back this morning. The loaner is a AWD Camry which is actually pretty peppy. 0-60 in just over 6 seconds lol

 

As a person who troubleshoots for a living (I'm an instrumentation tech) I can't tell you how hard it is to find something that seemingly isn't broke. I'm not saying nothing is wrong but it's hard to find something like this. Several things to keep in mind. It is either and outward leak or it's and inward "leak" getting into the combustion chamber or crankcase. Crankcase would be obvious because your oil would be milky. So that leaves burning in the combustion chamber with the most likely suspect being a head gasket or cracked head. I would "think" this would show up on a comprehensive pressure test which would take some time to find. Not sure how they did it but I know how I would do it and it would involve pressurizing the ENTIRE coolant system, removing the plugs and waiting, watching the pressure gauge for a good long while because your leak is obviously VERY small. IMHO, if you are losing coolant, then a proper pressure test should absolutely find the leak.
Furthermore, with an outward leak and with the amount of coolant you've put in it so far I would think that the white and or pink crust would be fairly evident by now. I know when I got my truck at first (used with 9K on the ODO) I had to put coolant in it once after I drove it for a while but I don't think I've put any in it since, so I think it came a little low from the factory and by driving it I purged some small air pockets which were filled with coolant and caused my reservoir bottle to be low. A least that's what I keep telling myself anyways haha.
Anyways, good luck I hope you find your leak

 

i had this happen in 2014 with my brz. it was around about the same time-- about 4 months and 2-3k miles. i was just going through checking fluids and saw the coolant was entirely empty. i dropped it off at the dealer specifically so they'd have record of filling it if there was an issue later.

they refilled it, i keep watching it, never had a problem since.

my theory is that they either didn't entirely fill the system on the production line, and/or some of the water boiled off in that time, as will happen naturally.

 

How about sending an engine oil sample yo blackstone labs? If there’s a coolant leak internally, like head gaskets, I believe it would show up in the results. Just a thought.

 

I did change my oil right after and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I think if it had 1 liter of coolant in 6 liters of oil then it would be noticeable (milky). Also I would have more fluid than normal which was not the case when draining the pan. Unless there are multiple leaks and not all of it mixed with the oil..

 

Glad to hear it fixed itself! Till this day I’m sure the dealer even wonders why.

 

I’m not sure what type of gaskets they use for their engines. Probably a metal with gasket material on both sides. I don’t think they actually did each cylinder for the test because accessing them on the drivers side is a b % t $ h. It would be nice to get a compression test. My bet is Toyota will either say fill it and see (which I already did twice and have photos) or they will replace or rebuild the engine to see for possible causes.

 

I’ve seen water pumps leak only when its running, intermittently and pass the pressure test with flying colors, and the smell too, which is why I don’t dismiss the fact there could still be a leak.

Get a light and a mirror somehow in there at the bottom of the water pump and look for any stain at the bottom of the pump were the weep hole is. That maybe your only tail tell.

Also, get a black marker and mark the current level in the morning when engine is cool and the vehicle is level. Check it daily before first start hopefully the temperatures won’t drastically change at the time.

Cheers

 

I should note, do not check for leak while the engine is running lol!

You're looking for a tiny stain

And check the level at the same spot the next day

 

If I let my 22 Off-road idol for 30 minutes or so it sometimes gets a faint smell of antifreeze,I mentioned it to service department when I took it in to get oil changed on the first service ( at 5,000 miles )
They replaced some sort of gasket ring.
I'll see if it fixed it!

Note: It never lost any coolant at all..and it does not do this all the time.

 

Hmmm seems like a different issue. Gaskets should be lasting much longer. And thank you for the intel. We all would love to hear back about it.

 

I haven’t sent anything large amount go outside the front of the engine. Im literally under the hood every week now that this happened. I will continue to do this after I get the truck back. I know Toyota wants to get to the bottom of this.