Is this normal? I've had the car just over 6 months (it got 'serviced' by the garage), and noticed it was about 1cm below minimum two months ago. I wouldn't normally top it up with water only but I figured because it's coming in to summer time I could get away with it before it's winter service.

Just checked it again and it's sitting about 1cm below minimum again. Is this normal? Or am I suffering from a leak?

Just want to know if the car generally loses coolant over time. If not, because it's such a little amount over a couple of months I imagine it'd be hard, if not impossible to spot myself. It is under warranty (3rd party) and the radiator, water pump, head gasket are all covered but I'm sure there's a getout somewhere on a technicality.

Thanks for the answers in advance.

For the first 6 months of ownership my coolant remained constant, but i started to loose it slowly over a period of weeks. It turned out to be a coolant pipe on the right hand side of the engine that was weeping when the engine got up to temperature. New jubeley clip later and finger crossed 2 months later my coolant has remained constant since.

It might be worth you sticking your head under the bonnet, on mine there was a red residue left around the leak from where the coolant evapourated.

Well, a quick look underneath revealed a bloody oil leak! The driver's side of the engine, didn't have time to check more thoroughly because I was at work but I'll check later on tonight once the car cools down.

Gutted! Any ideas what this could be? Just a crack in the sump or something?

When i removed my engine cover i had a slight oil leak on top of the engine cleaned it off and put a new jubeley clip around the pipe above the leak and it hasn't come back since. Best advice i can offer is give everything a good wipe down then drive the car hard and check hopfully you will see where it is coming from.

peter7889 said:

For the first 6 months of ownership my coolant remained constant, but i started to loose it slowly over a period of weeks. It turned out to be a coolant pipe on the right hand side of the engine that was weeping when the engine got up to temperature. New jubeley clip later and finger crossed 2 months later my coolant has remained constant since.

It might be worth you sticking your head under the bonnet, on mine there was a red residue left around the leak from where the coolant evapourated.

Click to expand...

Whereabouts was this leak? I'm planning on changing all my coolant hoses this summer anyway, but just out of curiosity, which pipe was it?

Hello guys, quick update. It's still leaking oil, I found it to be wet just next to the oil filter but I don't know if that's where the leak was coming from, or if that bit was being dripped on from above. It seems to do it intermittently, strangely, and it's not too much, just small patches when it does.

Regarding the coolant, it dropped to below minimum again, exact same level as before so I topped it up yesterday. Checked today and it was below minimum again, the exact same level as before. Can't see any leaks in the pipework and there's no red patches anywhere. Only drops are the oil. Now my coolant didn't look brown or smell oily, and there's no 'mayo' underneath the filler cap.

Is my head gasket starting to go?

Also ridiculous play in the steering and pulling to left, some bad knocking from what sounds like the bottom of the engine (my first thought is rear engine mount), bad clunk on start up as well. Not looking good! I think my £1000 warranty should cover the head gasket and power steering column if either of those are at fault.