Cadillac - Cts :: Coolant Leaking / Smoke Barreling From Under The Hood
Oct 24, 2011
Recently my 2003 Cadillac CTS has been leaking coolant at a faster pace than I could ignore. After noticing smoke barreling from under my hood, I decided to research the problem and attempt a DIY repair job by replacing the auxiliary coolant pump. After purchasing the part online and reviewing any forums I could find, I was determined to prove the naysayers wrong by undertaking the task over a free weekend. After a couple of hours I soon realized that this was a two man job. Still alone at the 4 hour mark, I was almost resigned to having it towed to a mechanic with all sorts of wire connections still unplugged. Resigning to give it one more college try I tempted the father-in-law over with the promise of all the beer he could drink. After another 4 & 1/2 hours 'without draining the coolant beforehand :)' we had successfully accomplished the mission (almost) impossible. So all in all, this chump (myself) spent almost 9 hours to perform this complex vehicular operation. My question is, for this part (an aux. coolant pump) how long would a certified, classically trained mechanic take to make the repair?
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I have a 2006 v6 ford mustang and just developed this problem yesterday.
When I drive the car, the temp guage stay right in the middle, but when I park I get white smoke come from under the hood. I popped the hood and saw coolant leaking from where the top radiator hose meets the engine block. This was producing the smoke. When I checked the hoses, the top hose was hot and hard, the bottom hose was cool and soft.
Extra info:1. I did not touch the radiator to see if there were cool or warm spots2. The overflow bottle looked empty or close to it, but the engine was still hot from driving to work
Thinking this could be one of the following:
1. bad thermostat
2. clogged radiator
3. Air bubble somewhere blocking the coolant flow
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I have a 2001 nissan altima. About 4 weeks ago it started over heating, smoke coming from under the hood, not the gauge raising. I took it to my mechanic and he replaced the big hose going from the radiator to the engine. I got it back and about 2 days later it started again overheating again, smoke under the hood. Took it back and he said the radiator is leaking it was under a year old so he replaced it, i drove it home on a sunday and monday morning I drove to work 5 miles at 10 am break it had two puddles under it. He said it's the radiator again, replaced it and we went to pick it up and he said it blew again. Sounds odd to me He finally said they thought it was the fans. The gauge never ran hot only the smoke coming from under the hood. If your looking under the hood it was wet on the left side. Needless to say he has had my car for almost 2 weeks and it's still not fixed. My question is should I go get it and take it somewhere else. What damage will it do to drive it somewhere else?
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I have a 2000 2wd with the 5.4 in it. I tow a travel trailer and loaded is 6500lbs. Today leaving the campground I had to climb an extremely steep hill as soon as you left the campground. No time to build speed. The old Ex made it, but I was definitely worried. The truck ran fine the rest of the 2 hours home. I went to back my camper into its spot to store, and smoke started coming out from under the hood. When I crawled under it, tranny fluid was leaking on the ground. A pretty steady drip. I let it cool down, added fluid and drove around. Didn't leak anymore. Did the tranny just get hot and had to burp? The drip was coming from where the tranny connects to the motor.
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I have a 2002 VW MK4 1.8t. It has 172,000 miles on it. Since i bought the car i have had to add coolant from time to time due to leaks from various plastic coolant parts so I replaced the crappy plastic connectors and flanges as they failed but it has never overheated till a couple days ago. It rose up to about 210'F but I didn't let it get to 260'F (aka the red zone).
While the temperature was up, the coolant was spraying everywhere causing white smoke under the hood. I stopped and looked under the hood and came up with the conclusion it was the coolant flange that holds the temp sensor since it was leaking coolant from the flange like a faucet hince the reason it caused it to overheat due to lost of pressure and no coolant in the system. So I replaced the part and gaskets then checked for other obvious leaks.
No leaks are shown nowhere else in the vehicle. So I added coolant to the car and let the cooling system do its magic as i left the heater on high. Let car idle with cap off and heater on for about 45 minutes. No signs of overheating. So I take the car for a spin and that's when the car starts heating up. I look under the hood and feel hoses and notice all are pressurized but top hose that leads to coolant flange is hot and the bottom hose connected to thermostat is cold.
I checked the return hose that leads up to the coolant reservoir to see if it's cycling and it appears it was. At low rpms the return hose had a steady flow and at high rpms it was flowing much rapidly. Which made me think it wasn't the water pump also this car with that many miles wouldn't have lasted with the plastic impellar this long if it wasn't already swapped out by previous owners. My question is what would cause it to still overheat? I forgot to note the fans did not turn on when the temperature was rising unless i turned the a/c on. But i still did a drive test with a/c on and it still overheated. I also did multiple burp cycles. I have invested alot of money in custom work and suck to leave it parked on the drive way.
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My car has had issues with the "low coolant" light coming on for over a year. No one could ever find a leak, the coolant level was always pretty good, and I never had a puddle.
Recently, my mechanic suspected it was the heater core. Since I earn early childhood teacher wages, I couldn't afford to have it fixed. As a temporary solution, he bypassed the heater core in order to buy me some time. Now, I have no heat or defrost. But also, the leak has gone out of control! I have to put coolant in daily, and I always have a puddle under my car when I am leaving work at the end of the day.
My car's newest trick is smoke, coming from under the hood, and the fresh smell of burning coolant. However, temperature is fine, at least that's what the gauge says.
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A little background info...up until about 6 months ago my 01 Ex V10 was a grocery getter for the wife; only got a few thousand miles a year for the most part. Since we moved from Washington state to Texas it has turned into my daily driver (after a 2500 mile drive towing 8k trailer).
A couple of weeks ago we were running errands and after we got home there was smoke coming from under the hood, but I couldn't pin point it. I let it be because I figure it would let me know when something was really wrong. A few days later it did it again but this time I found the problem; transmission fluid was leaking out of the bell housing onto the y-pipe. I did my research and come to find out it is most likely the front pump seal that got soft from overheating. So my buddy and I drop the transmission and replace the seal. Put it all back together and everything seems great.
Another week goes by and we have driven the Ex fairly extensively around town and even took a couple short day trips and everything is great. Then as we are turning onto an on ramp to get on the highway I give it gas to speed up and all of a sudden the RPMs climb like it dropped into neutral. I had enough momentum that I got over onto the shoulder and started to check thing under the hood. Looked like I was low on trans fluid; ok so I added a quart. Put it in "D" and still nothing. Then I try "1", "2", "R" and they all work fine.
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So i have a 01 LS and i love it so much. Ive only had it for 5months and since the 3rd month ive been having some overheating problems. Ive replaced the coolant reservoir it drove fine for about 3weeks then started to run hot again and leak coolant out the reservoir cap so i replaced that. Still ran hot.. so my brother got some air pockets out of the system but, it still ran hot. So i replaced the t-stat. After replacing that it did fine for a few days then started to run hot again. This time it seem to run hot one day and not the next until one day it ran hot constantly and steam would come from the reservoir and coolant would leak from under the car (behind front drivers side wheel.).
So when it leak i would check the overflow tank sometimes it will be full and sometimes not. When it wasn't full I would refill it until i ran ran out of antifreeze. Well i parked it after it leaked out the last of antifreeze that was in tank. So a few days later i got some antifreeze that was given to me by my brother which was red/orange all purpose antifreeze. I filled the tank up as it was dry and had leaked out all the green antifreeze. I started the car and let it run. It ran for about 20min without getting hot quickly like it usually do, air worked great but hea not so great.
Then I started seeing steam come from reservoir tank which was full of red coolant then its started leaking GREEN coolant instead of the red i filled the tank up with. Also the temp gauge never went to H while it did all of this. And the antifreeze drip from like 4 or 5 different places behind my left front wheel. Its a v8 3.9 engine.
I know one day i checked my coolant after it ran hot one day and it was low so i filled it up with water and forgot to put cap back on and i hopped on freeway. Soon as i got off it started smoking really bad i pull over and the coolant was boiling which i also forgot to mention. Thats another thing it has been doing. But the smoke came from the coolant boiling in tank and since i forgot to put cap on the smoke came out freely from tank. Could this have caused a problem. Although my car was running hot with coolant boiling in reservoir way before i did that and even after.
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Last week I noticed I was having to refill coolant in my excursion more than I should. I hae a mechanic friend now trying to diagnose the problem. he said he doesnt think its the water pump and there's no white smoke. Are there common leaking places for the coolant on 6.0s he should be looking for?
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My truck is a 2005 6.0 with no after mods and has 73000 miles on it. It began to blow white smoke out exhaust. I changed out the egr valve and cooler. After putting back together it then blew white smoke ran it to clear out. This worked however once it warmed up it began to blow thick white smoke at 20 mph and clears up by the time it reached 30mph and white smoke shoots out at rapid acceleration. As well there is coolant leaking out under the truck from somewhere in the motor about in the center. I am looking to work on this myself as I have heard of owners taking it to shops and paying a lot of money for the prob to not get fixed.
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I am new to the world of the Cadillac. I bought a nice 1994 Deville for $500 at auction. I replaced the water pump and put two new tires on the front. It is my daily driver I use for work, I put about 96 miles a day on it. The gas mileage is actually really good due to 90% of my drive is on the highway.
The only issue I am currently having is that the Heater/AC blower motor keeps running until I pull the plug under the hood. I started looking up solutions only to find that there really seems to be very little in the way of getting good information.
I have one side saying it's the blower motor itself
another saying it's the BMC
another saying it's the heater/ac programer
and still another saying there is no cure just pull the fuse
When I checked here I found one person with the same problem back in 2011, but there was no resolution.
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fan does not run even when temp is at 210
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Leaking red fluid near tire on drivers side. Mostly when AC is running. 2 mechanics have looked and cannot stop it. Has 108,000 miles n does use coolant when AC is running.
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I have changed radiator cap & there is no coolant circulating even when at 199. But you can remove cap it is luke warm.
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I have a 2005 Cadillac CTS with a 2.8 V-6. I have changed the Mobil One oil when ever the oil life has hit 50% since the car was new. I have 122,000 miles on the car now. In just the past few months I have noticed the coolant level going down at a rate of about 1/4 inch ever week with no visible signs of any leaks. I have pressured tested the radiator and the test comes back with no pressure loss. I also am losing about a 1/3 to a 1/2 quart of oil ever week with no signs of any leaks or smoke out of the exhaust pipe. I drive about 600 miles a week. My son is a tech at the local Chevrolet dealer. He has looked over the car and can find no visible cause for the fluid loss.
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The check coolant message comes on my message center on my 2002 Caddy Deville. I have checked this and there is plenty of coolant. Can this be repaired without removing and installing a new coolant overflow tank?
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I drove the car today up to the store and back. About halfway back I started smelling something. Like something burning, it wasn't a far drive and I didn't go through any puddles. I got it home and noticed some smoke coming from under the hood with the car off. So I popped the hood and looked around, it was coming from under the intake, after I took the engine cover off it looked to be coming from the back side of the engine.
More from the drivers side, I looked down the side of the block and didn't see anything. But it was coming up from the secondary air valve on the back side. Something below that was smoking. I couldn't pin point it, and I really can't tell you how it smelled as I have a cold.
I was under the hood for about 5 mins, and it started to dissipate. It was white smoke, but not like water dripping on the secondary radiator. Everything appeared normal while driving. There are no obvious oil or coolant leaks that could be dripping on the exhaust manifold.
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I recently noticed that my car was starting to smell like oil burning off. Soon i realized that from time to time there would be a bit of smoke form under the hood I looked under the car and noticed that oil is dripping onto the cat but i am not sure from where. There is not alot of room in the back of these engines to see.
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I have a 1999 Ford Taurus and a month ago I replaced the V-belt (which I think is the serpentine) and had the transmission fluid changed. This past Monday (March 7, 2011) I drove an hour to work on the highway going 70mph for about 35 minutes then successively lower speeds as the weather was getting worse closer to town. When I parked the car, I noticed smoke coming from the grill at the front of the car. It did have a sort of burning rubber smell. The temp gage on the dashboard registered normal. So, what kind of repair am I in for?
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Where the heck am I supposed to get a Saturn part as none of the dealerships exist! It's a maybe 8-inch small hose that goes from the top of my engine to some kinda shaft; the shaft goes to my air-filter. That's all I need is this skinny hose as smoke is coming up from beneath the hood! Is there a name for this particular hose? Embarrassing as heck but I don't think (am I right?) that this will cause any major harm. (I've already begun cleaning beneath the hood.)
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I have a 2002 honda accord dx. We have had to get it fixed a few months ago. It had something to do with the cooling system. Ran fine until recently. It ran hot. I pulled over. Let it cool. Never happened again. I watch my temperature gauge and only drive it around town.
Today, I left it running for a short time while I picked up my son to keep the air conditioner running. As I was walking out the door, I heard a loud pop and smoke started pouring out from under the hood. I ran out and turned the car off immediately. I'm freaking out! I'm letting it cool now. I haven't popped the hood yet.
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