Hello all

Hope everybody is staying out of trouble.....

So, odd one this.
I’ve owned the car for 5 years and it’s never used a drop of coolant. Level has always maintained itself around the max on the header tank.
About 3 weeks ago, ‘low coolant level’ pops up on the info display, so I check and it’s about 5mm below min. I top it up and less than 1 hours drive the same warning message pops up, So I check again and the level is exactly where it was before - about 5 mm below min. I top it up again.........

Well this happened 3 times so I thought I’d stop topping it up and see what happens all the while monitoring the temperature carefully. 1000 miles later and the level is still 5 mm below the min mark. It matters not how many times I top her up, the coolant disappears straight away down to below the min mark and then stabilises and doesn’t move.
The car reaches its temperature as normal and the gauge remains around mid point as it has always done.
Chemical test carried out yesterday on the header tank and it barely changed colour. There was a slight tinge of green but it took about 5 minutes and it was still the blue side of green.
There are no signs of pink crystalline deposits anywhere and no wet patches under the car. If tried spraying with soapy water but no signs of bubbles etc. There is no milky or creamy emulsification either on the dip stick or rocker cover cap.

I think the next step is to strip the egr cooler unless any of you brilliant peeps have another suggestion?

Best
F

Hi
About a year ago had similar symptoms (Sd4 auto). In addition there was a little oil in the expansion bottle. Initailly diagnosis was the egr cooler but was eventually traced to the oil cooler - part of the oil filter housing. Might be worth a look as possibly easier to get at than the egr cooler.
Good luck with it.

Thanks Oldsalt, never considered that, as you say, cheaper and easier first port of call than the egr....

Two thoughts
1. What happens if you start the car on the drive with the bonnet up and let it warm up whilst watching the level. Does the level rise first or does it just go down?

2. Have you checked the filler cap? It might be leaking pressure, I have seen this sort of thing before on older cars where the filler cap was on top of the radiator. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

The answer to that is I don’t know but I will check this week

Thanks for that