Hello to all, I'm a new member and owner of a 96 STS. I started researching this forum when I bought the car 2 months ago and have found it very useful. The car is a 1 owner, 94K traded in at my dealership (I'm a honda salesman), so I got it cheap (I thought) $2200. I love the car but been having to add 1/2 gallon of coolant every 500-750 miles, and am having serious anxiety about the HG issues. So I want to test the coolant, local Napa store had no idea what I was talking about when I asked, so does anyone have a model or part # so I can get one to test the coolant. Or is there another sure fire way to diagnose it without spending the $ for the tester. There is no leak to be found so I'm scared I bought someone else's problem. I may consider repairing it since I've only got a couple grand in the car and I really like it. Thanks, John
Thats alot of coolant to be adding. Is the car overheating? You can pressure test it to find if there are any external leaks.
The cheap and low tech way to check for a headgasket issue is to rub your finger on the inside of the exhaust pipes when they are cool. If there is coolant in there, it will be slimey and have a distinct odor. If thats the case, your hg's are shot. Any bubbling in the overflow tank is also a sure sign of hg failure.
DO a search on the forum for "purge line" so you can check it for clogs and make sure there's no air in the system. If the hg's are bad, the repair is between 2500-3500 depending on the shop and how its fixed.
Car is not overheating since I keep the coolant full, and I've checked the purge line and it's OK too. No smoke, runs fine just losing the coolant so I wanna go ahead and check it for exh. gasses. Anyone ever heard of an intermittant leak that could only be happening while driving, I can't find any evidence of external leaks.
I second the pressure test as the first test ,could be just a hair line crack in the radiator or something. i had a head gasket go on me, iwent with a boneyard motor, so far so good after 25k miles
Try another parts store, I've got no idea the part number.
Losing that much coolant with no apparent leak would be a sure sign of hg failure, but its a little strange its not overheating. Did you check the tailpipes for coolant?
A cooling system pressure test may or may not detect a bad head gasket. Probably not. The cheap (sure fire) way, if you do it yourself is to do a cylinder pressure test. You'll need an air compressor. I think there is a tutorial in the Tech Tips section.
