Pour 1 litre of Ballygowen into an expansion vasel of a 1996 1.0 Litre Volkwagen Polo

resueman

Hi, Just seeking a little help with some car trouble earlier. My car, mentioned above overheated past the 90 degrees celsius mark earlier this evening with the red temperature light flashing and a buzzing sound hear from under my steering wheel. Waiting approximately half an hour and found I needed to pour over 1 litre of sparkling water into the expansion vasel. Car ran perfect the rest of the motorway but overheated slight after.

Can I add anything to the water now to remove the fizz or will I just go about my business as normal?

Any help would be helpful as I intend on driving to work in the morning.

roroliam

Slice of lime,or some mi-waddy (strong stuff, honestly mum).

Tails142

Hmm... you will need to bleed the system for sure after that due to the gas escaping from the water, might be as simple as removing the cap of the expansion tank or there may be bleed screws on a couple of the coolant pipes.

Sounds like you have a coolant leak though which you will need to sort. I wouldn't drive it if I was you except to a garage to have the leak investigated and the coolant flushed.

Keep an eye out for oil in the coolant or water in the oil as you may have warped your cylinder head from overheating.

YbFocus

You basically snowfoamed your cooling system.
Total flush and refill.
Although if it is leaking you have an underlying problem.

Markcheese

YbFocus wrote: »

You basically snowfoamed your cooling system.
Total flush and refill.
Although if it is leaking you have an underlying problem.

What ?
It's a bit of extra co2 ? Just bleed the system surely ?
Of course the leak is a different matter -

Mycroft H

Just bleed it. Carbonated water is all that went in

YbFocus

Markcheese wrote: »

What ?
It's a bit of extra co2 ? Just bleed the system surely ?
Of course the leak is a different matter -

Yeah but because you were generating air at the pump you had no or little flow after it.
A water pump will blow air about the place and not drive water.
You would have a seriously affected flow during this time.

It's just flow mathematics. It makes sense

spaceHopper

Sounds like you have a leak probably best to get it looked at. If it over heats running the internal heating at max temp and full blast will help take some heat off the engine. Keep a large bottle of water in the car too just in case it happens again. I dont know how much gas is in the water but it can't be to much. Open the expanson tank and radiator to let the pressure off and see what happens.

TheChizler

Any chance the minerals in the water could have an effect? Ever seen a kettle after boiling mineral water? Presumably you'd need to do it often to have a serious effect.

king_of_inismac

The fact you used sparkling water is of little or no relevance.

Your main concern is why your car is overheating. At best you have a leak; at worst, the head gasket is gone.

Once you've fixed the underlying reason for overheating, you can flush the system and replace your ballygowan with proper coolant.

Don't drive the car until you've fixed the overheating problem, or you may need a replacement engine.

air

I'd check your oil levels also, the only buzzer I've encountered on VWs is the low oil one.

Popoutman

In general, mineral waters are not an acceptable coolant additive, if they have lots of dissolved contents. The soft bottled waters are okay to use. It's also a bad idea to use unsoftened tap water from a hard water area - you'll likely have trouble with limescale deposits throughout the cooling system.
Of course, in a situation where you have no other choice you can use them but only for a short time, and you'd be advised to do a coolant flush with clean soft water and then refill with manufacturer recommended coolant.

batskat

One off sparkle water probably isnt gonna give any major problems.The bubbles of gas will gas out quickly .
if you keep to add water regularly then you got some issues .
The cooling system with regular overheating can cause local overheating steam spots in engine with bad effects

The problem is why was the water level low was it a leak or head gasket or water pump or other problem like heater exchange system .

1996 car can be blocked radiator from scum build up in radiator .

Good luck batskat

ironclaw

As TheChizler said, the water in this context has a high mineral and salt content. You'd want to ensure a very good flush.