Car leaking antifreeze?

DrZoidberg

DrZoidberg

Active member
So, there was green snow under my car this morning, bright antifreeze colored green. It's not much, so it's not like the stuff is pouring out of my car or anything but you can still drive it right? It's a subaru 2004 forester 2.5x. I know it moves, obviously, but it's not gonna die on me in the middle of the road, right? The elak seems to be near the front, I looked under and can't realy find anything. I also don't know what I'm looking for.

As far as causes go, I went out yesterday in this so called blizzard, in NJ, and was going over mandatory snow chunks because they suck at plowing. Didn't hit anything solid or crash. The car has like 86,000 miles on it, so that may factor in. So NS, can I self repair, should I take it somewhere?
 
It's poison?

I'm just gonna take it to a shop, from my extremely limited knowledge about cars a some google-ing, the head gaskets can be a cause of this and I know blowing those up is bad. It's probably not that but better safe than sorry. Anybody got a price estimate if you've had something like this. I guess it's kinda hard to say since I don't know the problem but any guesses? I don't wanna be charged for like a new transmission when all I need is some type of hose.

Also, it's super nice out. I wish I was skiing. I jumped down my deck stairs and landed knee deep in snow, in sweat pants. It was cold.
 
The only thing you risk by leaking antifreeze is overheating.

Watch your temperature levels, and keep an eye on your coolant level every time you drive.

Keeping your trips short will help too until you figure out whats wrong with the car.

To answer your question in a simple statement- no, it's not bad to drive while leaking antifreeze.
 
I don't know how much I would trust that...the chance of the metal turning the snow that color doesn't seem very plausible. Was it a noticeable leak? How high is your anti-freeze level? The yellow discoloration people were talking about from the snow hitting the bottom of their engines is probably from rust rubbing off on the snow and giving it that color. Most of the piping and heat shields on Subaru's are stainless steel so they shouldn't discolor the snow.

If you were driving over snow it shouldn't matter too much. I'm not positive but I think Forester's have skidplates under the engine so none of the snow would have been able to get up and bump your inner piping. Can you confirm that? What is more likely is that the cold weather has caused one of your hoses to shrink slightly. This has led to a very small drip of antifreeze that you just noticed for the first time, or it just started happening.

If you are worried you are leaking antifreeze, watch your levels over a couple of days and see if they change much at all. You can also go to the store or to autozone and pick up a blacklight. Antifreeze will glow under blacklight. Go out at night and crawl under your car as well as looking down from the top of it, shine the light everywhere and see if you see anything glowing. That might show you where your problem is.
 
I would doubt that it's a head gasket problem. Foresters stopped having problems there after MY03.

If you had an older forester, I would be worried because a head gasket job was practically regular maintenance on those cars.

Try taking a look under the car and see where it's coming from. If it's cold enough, you might be able to follow a trail of partially frozen coolant right to the leak.

 
If it was a headgasket, you would know. Your car would be overheating and leaking possibly both coolant and oil. Your engine would be smoking a ton and if you were leaking coolant from a blown headgasket you would leave a huge white trail of smoke behind you all the time and your car would run like shit.

Chances are there is a loose hose somewhere.
 
Coolant shouldn't freeze....but I also forgot to say, if it is a headgasket expect about $1500 at least cause they have to pull out the whole engine and tear it down in a Subaru.
 
I'm pretty sure it's not a gasket, it sounds normal. More green snow though.

Just checked, there is a skid plate and there is some more green snow. It appears to be coming from just behind the plate. I ddin't go too far under the car cause I'm wearing sweat pants and a t shirt, the neighbors are looking at me like I'm crazy. Non-skiers afraid of the cold. I'm just gonna go to a shop. My knowledge of cars can be compared to that of a cactus' so even if it's juts a loose or messed up hose I like to have someone check it out. Going skiing on sat hopefully so better safe than sorry. +k to all, thanks.

New radiator was something that crossed my mind, we'll see soon.
 

I'm not a mechanic, but have blown a couple of head gaskets in my years. Hopefully this info helps.
Since it's leaking externally, it's probably not your head gasket. When your head gasket goes, your antifreeze leaks in to the motor. It will get mixed in with your oil. If you check your dipstick, and your oil looks normal (instead of a very light brown), then you're probably safe on the head gasket part. (Hope and pray because head gaskets are expensive to have replaced.)
Chances are that you've just got a leak in a hose somewhere. See if you can follow the drip line to it's source. If it's just a small crack in your radiator hose, you can get some tape to wrap it at any auto parts store. Of course, you can also replace the entire hose as well.
The other option is you've got a crack in your radiator. Not quite as expensive as a head gasket to replace, but still no bueno.
Good luck dude.
 
Ya thats a good possibility on Subaru's. They are notorious for cracked radiators, especially in the EJ engines (which yours is).

Take it in, hopefully they find it. If the source of the leak is dripping off the skidplate, chances are it is dripping from somewhere further up towards the bumper, pooling, and running down the skid plate.
 
keep a jug of the 50/50 pre mix antifreeze in your car and check the level before each trip. also keep an eye on the thermostat.
 
I'm the OP's brother.

We just took it to a shop and they said that some hoses and whatnot are leaking, the thermostat needs to be changed and some other minor stuff.

But they also said one of the head gaskets is cracked and needs to be replaced in the near future. We're going to get the hoses and whatnot done there, but my dad wants to take it to a subaru place to get the gasket check out to see if its broken/needs to be replaced/replaced if necessary.

I don't know about this head gasket. One time, I went to get m uncles cars oil changed, and we did. When I started driving away, the car pretty much exploded in smoke. They said a gasket was broke, but they actually just put too much oil in and it was burning off. Then they tried to refer us to a mechanic, sounds like some shady scam they were working
 
I hit a tree and fucked up my radiator, that shit sucks. You can still drive it just fine if it's just leaking a little anti-freeze, but if your car starts overheating a lot take it to the shop and have them check it out. My car was fucked to shit, and would start overheating when I stopped at traffic lights, it was bad.
 
Hoses sounds right...you probably don't NEED to change the thermostat, but it isn't a bad idea while they are down there.

As for the head gasket, that is most likely bullshit. You can hardly see the head gasket (if at all) while the long block is fully assembled. The only way to tell is by what the car is doing as well as a leak down and compression test. If you look at a fully assembled EJ255 you can't really see the gasket at all so there is no way they could tell if it was cracked.

Take it to another mechanic...I would only take it to a Subaru dealership if you absolutely have to. They are notorious for being crooks.
 
false. Antifreeze prevents freezing and over heating. in fact, we went over all of this in AP chem today.

it will lower the freezing point and raise the boiling point of the water that it is mixed with. if it were to just freeze at 0 degrees Celsius, and pipes that it would go through would explode because the water expands and your engine would not be cooled...

so yes, it is bad to drive with leaking antifreeze in the winter. in fact, its probably worse in the winter because in the summer you can just keep adding water as the water evaporates, but in the winter you need to have antifreeze to keep the water from freezing and expanding and fucking up your car
 
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