rossw46

I drained the cooling system toaday and re-filled in a more sympathetic mannner. Started the car up, and within a couple of minutes I could feel decent heat coming out of the vents, happy days ! I drove the car for 18 miles, and no hint of overheating, and the heaters stayed hot. I hope this is problem solved, but I'll give it a few days to confirm.

Thanks Steve, I'll try refilling the cooling system tommorrow mate.

Thanks Steve. So is there meant to be coolant in the metal header tank when the car is cold or not ?

Hey Scooby Pete, Thanks, I will be over the moon if this is the case ! Couple of things though :- The new rad was fitted by a Subaru Specialist, and I managed to drive the car home 25 miles and there was no overheating, it was a couple of days later the overheating started. I drained the system, put in a new thermostat, and then re-filled with the front of the car raised on jack stands. I put coolant in until it was up into the expansion tank, I think from memory a bit over 4 litres went in ?? I'll search for a fill procedure now, as I'll try that again !

Hi All. My Impreza Turbo 2000 overheats within 10 mins of the engine running, so what is going on ?? I suspected the head gasket because :- It's loosing coolant, there is quite alot of vapour coming out of the exhaust, the heater doesn't get warm anymore, and I see some steam and bubbling in the overflow tank when the engine is warm. I'm confused though, because I bought a sniffer tester online, that you put into the header tank hole and it detects CO2 gas in the cooling system, but I couldn't get the colour of the liquid to change from blue. Also, before I start the car, there is no coolant in the header tank, but within say 2 minutes, the coolant rises up the header tank fairly rapidly, and will overflow if the engine is left running. This makes using the sniffer impossible aswell. I did try the sniffer on the overflow tank, but again the colour of the liquid didn't change ? The car is a V reg, standard, with 120 000 miles, just had a full service and new radiator, and I've just put in a brand new thermostat too. Could the temperature sensor be faulty ? It sits as low as it can go for about 5 + minutes, then moves up tonominal in around 30 seconds, then after a further 2 or 3 minutes at 2000 rpm it rises up and keeps going until the engine is stopped ? If anyone has any words of wisdom I'd appreciate it. In a sad way I'd be grateful even just to know it definately was the head gasket, that way I could at least crack on while I'm off and start getting the engine out. Thanks, Ross