3,000 Miles and a Head Gasket Leak?
 

So I have a brand new Sante Fe (2008) with the 3.3l engine. I decided to check the fluids one morning when it was cold (cool, I live in the Caribbean so that's like 78). The coolant reservoir was almost empty and the radiator had no coolant visible. I ended up adding a little over half a gallon to the radiator and reservoir combined. Problem solved, I thought.

The next day after driving it 80 miles I checked the reservoir and it was to the TOP and bubbles were slowly but steadily coming from the inlet tube into the reservoir at hot idle! Now, I've owned several Olds 350 Diesels so I've seen this before; compression leaking into the cooling system. :eek: There are no other symptoms, no overheating, oil/water mixing, white smoke, nothing like that. The temp gauge never even reaches halfway. The level in the reservoir varies from "L" to overfull when checked cold but the radiator is never full unless I force the coolant over from the bottle. The next day the level is down again.

Sometimes I can hear air in the heater core, too. The problem seems worse after a day of long, hard driving than when driving short trips. It's at the dealer now but I suspect they are going to tell me there is nothing wrong with it. Sometimes there are no bubbles. It seems to come and go.

Has anyone else seen this? I assume everyone else's radiators are full when checked cold?

Thanks! :)

Update
 

I should be a psychic. :rolleyes: Of course they "tested it extensively and found nothing wrong." Oh,well. At least when it overheats and warps the heads someday I have documentation that nothing was wrong. Then I will get a free top-end rebuild.

They charged me $74 for an oil change. I know things are high here, but what do others pay?

It just sounds like you have air trapped in the system. Keep filling the radiator until the level stops going down.

That was my first hope, but after doing that for 2 weeks it seemed there was more to the problem.

Take it back to the dealer. Tell them it's losing coolant, you have to fill it all the time. It may be leaking out the water pump, and that would be preferable. If it's getting sucked out the head, it can ruin the catalytic converter and O2 sensors.

^ Under warranty, right? :D

The problem is they pressure tested the cooling system and found "no external leaks". I told them it's "leaking" into the reservoir, not the ground. They don't seem to understand. Also, the cooling system holds 15 psi just fine, but leaks under the 165 psi of compression from the head. They could have done a cylinder leak down test and found an anomaly, but I doubt it since it only leaks (blows bubbles) after a long, hard drive on the highway. It's just too small and intermittent a leak to find it right now. If it never gets worse then it would run like this forever, I think.

Oh, well. When it comes to them on a flatbed after overheating, warping the block and cracking the heads then they can give me a new engine. Hopefully that will happen in about 9 years/90,000 miles. :D

Hi,
If this car has only 3000 miles on it I would be demanding a new one from the dealership, you may have a chance before it is 12months old. Also check for recalls as here in the UK there has been many!! don't let them bluff you mate all the best and good luck
clifty27:mad:

After they replaced the radiator cap to no avail, I took it back a 3rd time and they finally admitted it has a problem. It has now been in the shop for almost 7 weeks! :eek: At least they provided us with a rental, albeit a tiny Nissan Sentra. They replaced the water pump which had a slight inward leak. No dice. Now they find that if they bypass the heater core, the issue goes away. When the engine cools it sucks the coolant back like it should. So they are going to replace the heater core.

According to the dealer, you're right. The system keeps sucking in air every time it cools down.

OMG, Problem Found!
 

After 38 days in the shop they decided to pull the heads. I was wrong. The head gasket was not leaking, BECAUSE THERE WAS NO HEAD GASKET!!! The factory forgot to install the rear head gasket. All I have to say is that's some amazing machine work to run that well with no head gasket.