Whenever something is pouring out of your car, you may feel stressed. If it’s coolant, it means that the engine will not be able to run soon – it will overheat because the coolant level will become low very fast. So, there is no time – you have to take some actions right now or the car will be stopped and you will be stranded.
In short, coolant may be pouring out of the bottom of your car because of the damaged pipe, broken water pump, cracked engine block or head, leaking radiator, etc. Actually, there are dozens of potential units that can leak coolant intensively, and several reasons that can cause these leaks.
I will cover the following in this article:
- What to do right when you see the coolant pouring out of your car?
- Locating the problematic unit and assessing your steps.
- How can you quickly solve the problem?
- Can you drive with no coolant in the system?
What should you do when you see coolant pouring out of the bottom of your car?
Coolant is moving all the way around your engine and in it. It moves from the engine to the radiator, it cools down there thanks to cool air that blows right onto the radiator when you drive, and then it goes back to the engine to cool it down. That’s quite a primitive explanation of how the cooling system works.
You have several risk points where the coolant may start pouring out. For now, let’s see what should be your first steps after you locate this problem:
- Turn off the engine. This will help you reduce the pressure in the cooling system and the coolant will not pour so quickly.
- Try to quickly find something that can catch the coolant. It’s important to collect the coolant because you may reuse it. Also, contaminating the environment with the coolant from your car is not the best idea.
- Locate the place where coolant leaks. Carefully look at pipes and connections, look at the engine from all sides, and locate the leak.
- Think if you can fix the leak. Sometimes, it’s possible to replace the pipe right on the roadside – you just need to buy a pipe of the needed size. But in most cases, it’s impossible to repair the car quickly after such a problem.
- Find a way to tow your vehicle to the repair shop. It’s important to avoid damaging the car by overheating the engine with a low level of coolant in it.
- Have the vehicle inspected and repaired. In many cases, you will need professional help to get rid of the leak.
Even if the problem is relatively simple to solve, you will obviously need some parts for it. A cracked coolant pipe needs replacement and you are not likely to find the needed pipe readily available in the nearest car parts store. So, pouring coolant from the bottom of your car is never good news and you should be ready to tow the vehicle and have it inspected.
But still, let’s see what exactly can cause this problem.
Locating the problem – an important step
Unfortunately, it’s often hard to locate the actual problem. You may find it difficult to even see all of the coolant pipes because your engine is probably covered by a huge plastic shield and you don’t see anything under it. If the plastic cover is easily removable, take it off to investigate the pipes that you can see this way.
You may look at the wet spot on the engine and locate the problem using this method. Find the beginning of the wet spot and think about what exactly can leak in this place. For example, you may see that the engine block is all wet and the head is dry. In this case, you may presume that the problem is in the head gasket that was broken and now coolant leaks out of the engine.
Here are the spots that can leak coolant in your vehicle:
- Coolant rubber pipes. These are the first to check. After they go about 100K miles or 10 years, they may get too hard and crack eventually.
- Pipe connections. Manufacturers use special clamps to let the pipes hold firmly in place. But these connections may fail because of their age or because of pressure spikes in the system.
- Water pump. If you don’t replace the water pump on time, it will most likely blow and the coolant will leak from the bottom of the engine.
- Engine block. A cracked engine block is not that exotic. It can crack because of temperature problems or just because of its age. In this case, you will need to replace it or even buy a new engine.
- Broken radiator. This is one more quite possible problem that you can locate. Radiators are made of thin aluminum and may be broken after any impact.
- Thermostat failure. If you have an old type thermostat, it may also blow and leak coolant. But in the majority of modern vehicles, this part won’t leak.
It’s often hard to locate the actual problem of coolant leaking from the bottom of your car. You may need to take off the splash guard, the plastic cover on the engine, and some other parts to see the place where the engine is leaking. And even if you do this, it’s not guaranteed that you can see the problematic spot easily.
It’s always better to let a professional mechanic find the reason for this problem. Sometimes, the car will require much more work than you can potentially do to just locate the problem.
Is there a quick fix to avoid being stranded?
Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for the pouring coolant. If the coolant is leaking heavily from the bottom of your vehicle, there is nothing much you can do. Just try to not let the coolant contaminate the environment.
If the coolant is leaking in a small amount, you can add some coolant to the reservoir and keep driving. After every 10 minutes, you should stop and check whether the coolant level is OK or it needs to be added.
Please never open the coolant reservoir cap when the engine is hot. Coolant vapors may burst out and hurt you. Always do this carefully and with an understanding of what can happen.
You may not only add coolant to this reservoir. If it’s summer and there is no risk of freezing, you can add pure water into the reservoir. It will dilute the coolant that is still in the system and will do the job of cooling down the engine. Add some water now and then and you can drive without engine overheating and other issues.
What if you drive with no coolant in the system?
If the cooling system in your vehicle doesn’t have any liquid in it, the engine will immediately overheat. Also, the engine temperature sensor will not be operable because it measures the temperature of the coolant. It will not measure the temperature of the air. So, the car will not even tell you about the overheated engine and you will kill it pretty quickly.
Also, you shouldn’t drive or even start the engine without any coolant in it because the water pump will go crazy, overheat, and eventually fail very quickly. When you replace the water pump, you will most likely want to replace the timing belt, pulleys, and tensioner. This may be a very costly mistake, in the end.
But the scariest thing is still overheating the engine to the temperature of hell. The following will happen with it, in this case:
- the friction will become harder because hot parts will slightly grow in size;
- the oil will overheat and lose its properties, there will be poor lubrication;
- the temperature will be building up quickly because there is no coolant to stop the engine from doing that;
- the swollen pistons will start scratching the cylinder;
- the overheated rod bearings will be at risk of getting stuck;
- the valves will also get stuck and won’t do their job.
In the end, your engine will just die. It’s hard to say how much time is needed to completely kill the engine that has no coolant in it. But it’s not that much. For some engines that produce a lot of heat, this will only take several minutes. So, experimenting and driving without coolant in your car is obviously not a good idea.
The biggest mistake is to drive and look at the temperature gauge. As I already told you before, the gauge will not be working correctly because it usually measures the temperature of the coolant. Now it has nothing to measure.
Final thoughts
If the coolant is pouring from the bottom of your vehicle, it only means that you shouldn’t start the engine. Try to avoid losing the coolant and letting it pollute the environment. After that, you should try and locate the place where the coolant is leaking. In most cases, you will need professional help to diagnose the vehicle and repair it.
Also, keep in mind that it’s important to avoid driving your car if it overheats. Otherwise, you can only make things worse and kill the engine.