Help needed please... WRX putting out steam... no obvious reason!

barney 20v

Hi all... i need some help please trying to diagnose why my 2001 irish wrx decided to piss out 3/4 of its coolant this morning after a normal drive to work- 20 miles.

I parked in the car park and the car was fine.. two work buddies called in to me to tell me that after i had entered the building the car was engulfed in steam from the bonnet scoop and the front grill.

The car is driving perfect.. no fault lights.. no abnormal temp reading-gauge is at normal range.. and working from cold etc..the car was driving as normal. no loss of power or any weird engine noises.

The car was last checked for coolant and oil 3 days ago and all was well.
It is booked in for service + waterpump etc in 2.5 weeks time.

I'm stummped as to what is causing this and any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

ARGINITE

Where did the steam come from (other than the car of course)? Might be worth finding out as it could just be a leaking hose or rad.

barney 20v

I tried to have a look and see this morning but it is raining horizonatally here so it was hard to see where its coming out of... it still has about 25% of its coolant in it from what i can see...
the car did not over heat and gave no indication of a fault.. my commute is straight from a-b no town traffic or anything to hinder cooling.

ARGINITE

Have you tried refilling the coolant and see if there is a leak?

barney 20v

I will have to wait until i finish work to have a proper look at it..
I hope its just a hose or clip or something...

ARGINITE

Fingers crossed it is.

barney 20v

ARGINITE wrote: »

Fingers crossed it is.

Hard to diagnose any location for a leak in this weather tbh..
If a hose was split would the car not lose all its coolant though?

ARGINITE

barney 20v wrote: »

Hard to diagnose any location for a leak in this weather tbh..
If a hose was split would the car not lose all its coolant though?

It would loose coolant until the level of coolant fell below the level the leak is at, but you would also get steam from the coolant system and from the coolant falling on hot engine or exhaust parts.

barney 20v

ARGINITE wrote: »

It would loose coolant until the level of coolant fell below the level the leak is at, but you would also get steam from the coolant system and from the coolant falling on hot engine or exhaust parts.

Yea the turbo is located directly below the main header tank and hoses.. i wonder did the header cap release under pressure and dump the water onto the manifold+ turbo heat sheild creating the big cloud of steam...?

ARGINITE

Sounds lightly.

barney 20v

Thanks for the help.. hopefully its nothing too expensive!

barney 20v

Just an update on this,,, got to the bottom the cause, Turned out to be a small return hose from the turbo water feed to the header tank.Thank god nothing major!
Happy days!

ARGINITE

Nice one.