Diagnose Blown Head Gasket
 

My S60 is using antifreeze (small amounts), but not dropping it on the ground.

The car runs great, but I'm worried.

How will I know if it's a head gasket?

What do those normally cost to fix?

How much is it losing?

I've driven it 100 miles and added 2-3 cups and it seems to keep going down.

Could it be that it is just low on coolant?

Did you do anything to the cooling system that required draining it?

Nope........

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Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'm going to start looking tonight.

Took the car to my mechanic of 30+ years and he tells me the head gasket is not blown. He thinks its just a sensor. He did say the coolant was a bit low in the bottle and told me to add some.

I still want to know why its low in the first place. He put it up on the lift and checked it out thoroughly. No signs of anything leaking anywhere..

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I will ask my guy to do the pressure testing.

Heater core would leak inside the car, correct?

We had a problem with our S70 loosing coolant. Adding about a cup or two per week (about 100 miles). The tale sign for it was that the low light was on when the car was started first thing in the morning, when it was cold. Then when it was driven the low light went out. The head gasket was bad.

You are not suppose to open the coolant tank when the car is warm, only when cold. So check it when it's cold and if it needs coolant fill it up then.

I took the car for a drive and 5 minutes into the drive I pulled over, popped the hood and the tank had more coolant in it, drove 5 more miles (freeway driving) checked again and it was forcing itself out of the tank cap. The thing that blew me away was how fast the stuff dried, it was almost immediate. I guess that's because of it's temperature.

I'm not saying that you have a head gasket problem. Like ES6T explained, you likely have a small leak that needs to be pressure tested to find. You may also be able to add some iron dye in the system and get a black light to find it. Loosing coolant all the sudden is not normal. As for the level in the tank, it should stay steady all day long.

Head gaskets just don't go bad, there is always a cause. 1. Overheating; 2. A previous bad install job. Don't know of any others. I will tell you this, driving around with a leak is engine roulette.

You can open the coolant reservoir hot, just do so slowly to slowly release the pressure.


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2001 Volvo S60

https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...roblems-63516/

true that you can, but you should not.
if you do anyway, don't put the cap back on until the system is cold, radiators are made to withstand pressure, not vacuum. when the coolant cools, it shrinks and that vacuum it creates can damage certain components.

You can put the cap on, nothing will happen.

The vacuum that would be created is too small to do anything.

Also, the radiator can handle vacuum just fine. If it can handle pressure, it can handle negative pressure.

We often use a tool to fill the cooling system faster. It attaches to the reservoir and shop air. It then creates a vacuum and that vacuum is used to pull coolant into the system. This pulls about 21 psi of vacuum. The vacuum that could theoretically be created by putting the cap back on hot wouldn't be close to that.