About a week ago I just finished replacing my heater core on my car after noticing a puddle of coolant on the driver's side, and ultimately tracing the leak back up to the heater core.

I got an entire new set of o-rings, and a new heater core. After putting the new o-rings in and the heater core, I started the car up and added some coolant (during the removal of the old bad core, I drained out all of the coolant in the car). After driving it for the first time in a month, I went by the store to get some more coolant because it had sucked up all of the remaining ones, I topped it off at the store and by the time I got home it was low again and the light had come back on.

The total trip was about 10 miles. I then thought that maybe the car needed more coolant because of the amount of air that could have gotten into the radiator, so the system was just trying to bleed itself out. Things started to look better on the third or 4th day, it wasn't using as much coolant, and the level seemed to stay pretty consistent.

I topped it off again on Saturday, and I looked at it again today and the light came back on, sure enough the tank was low again on coolant.

I don't have any leaks anywhere on the floor, I checked all of the hoses, all of them are secured tight. I have no idea what's wrong with this car and if all I had went through was for nothing. I am thinking it's a blown head gasket or something, but I am just not sure. Can anyone please help me, does this sound like a fixable problem, or am I in for a much bigger deal here?

EDIT: I should also note that the car is NOT overheating.

 

You need to find someone that can pressure test the system.

 

Do you know how much it would be for a pressure test? And does it have to be at the dealer?

 

It does not have to be a Dealer they just have to have the Volvo setup. It should be like 1 hour labor.

 

If you're pushing out a lot of white smoke, that's a sign of a blown head gasket.

 

just wondering did you coolant level get any better. I just replaced my heater core. After 3 fills on the storage tank it finally stopped drink it up.