If you’ve got a car leaking antifreeze it’s important to get the problem fixed right away. Leaking antifreeze will lead to overheating and overheating leads to:
- Being broken down
- Burst coolant hoses
- Blown head gaskets
- Warped cylinder heads
- Cracked engine block
All this can be avoided if you get the leak fixed! To find out where your car is leaking antifreeze from let’s talk about the possible leak locations:
- Water pump
- Radiator
- Heater core
- Thermostat
- Oil cooler
- Timing cover
- Head gasket
- Hoses
If you’ve got a leak from your radiator or your heater core then it will be pretty obvious since they are the only components carrying coolant in that area. If you’ve got a leak from a hose, it is also usually easy to spot due to a crack frayed hose. Leaking water pumps, thermostats, coolers or gaskets on your engine are often much more difficult to diagnose. These types of leaks also are usually very slow leaks due to the way a cooling system gasket fail making it even harder to diagnose.
One of the best tools diagnosing the problem of a car leaking antifreeze is a cooling system pressure test kit. This allows you to use a hand pump to pressurize the cooling system up to the normal operating pressure and beyond to force leaks to show themselves while the engine is cold and easier to inspect. The added bonuses of a hand pump kit like this one are that it’s relatively difficult to overpressurize your system and cause more damage and the longer it takes to pump it up to operating pressure the less coolant you have in your system so you an get an idea of how bad the leak is.
You can purchase your own kit like this or you can swing by one of our partnering local auto parts stores and see if they have one you can borrow or rent!
While you’re at the parts store, grab a bottle of BlueDevil Coolant Stop Leak as well. BlueDevil Coolant Stop leak is a guaranteed permanent repair for all cooling system leaks and is a great option for when the hard part repair doesn’t make sense for your car or your budget.
You can pick up BlueDevil Coolant Stop Leak at one of your local auto parts stores like:
- AutoZone
- Advance Auto Parts
- CarQuest Auto Parts
- NAPA Auto Parts
- O’Reilly Auto Parts
- Pep Boys
- Canadian Tire
- Walmart
BlueDevil Products can be found on Amazon.com or at AutoZone, Advance Auto Parts, O’Reilly Auto Parts, NAPA, and other major auto parts retailers.
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