Coolant Leak

**Dee-C** · 27-04-2013,01:39 PM

Sorry to revive this thread after a month but I'm still dealing with the coolant leak problem...

It's now become more severe and I'm losing coolant daily. The mechanic has since replaced the water pump but the leak returned the next day. He has now said it is the feeder pipes and that he has a feeling it could be due to bad pressure and ultimately a head gasket problem.

After arriving home today after picking the car back up from the garage I checked the coolant and it was at least double the amount that should be in the bottle... well over the max line and almost at the cap?!?! Would this not cause more problems with pressure as it now has no space to breath and will force the excess coolant out at the weakest point?

I've cut my loses with the current garage as it's almost 2 months wasted and still no repair. I've booked it in with an official Audi dealer next week and hopefully they don't come to the same conclusion...really don't fancy replacing the head gasket

Any help would be much appreciated.

**Geraldy212** · 28-04-2013,01:29 PM

Dee, sorry to see that you are still having problems. With the coolant levels, first of all try to remove at least some coolant so it comes down to aprox max. Note that sometimes after being refilled with coolant, there is still some air trapped in the pipework. After a while the engine will 'burp' and the coolant level will fall. So keep the removed coolant in case you need a bit to top-up with. I agree with you to forget the current garage. By now they should have spotted where the leak is and fixed it. You mentioned earlier that the leak diminished when turning off the heat inside the car. Is this still the case? If so, the leak is almost certainly in the heater circuit somewhere. There are some pipes that feed the heater matrix, and of course also a valve to regulate the flow of coolant. I still think that the garage should have traced this path carefully and looked for split hoses or faulty hose clamps. With coolant all over the floor, the head gasket should be the least of your worries. Hope that the Audi mechanics will be better at determining where the leak is. Keep us posted, and good luck.

**Dee-C** · 28-04-2013,01:51 PM

Thank you for the reply Geraldy.

Have it booked in next weekend so fingers crossed they find the problem.

As the weather has been better I've not really been using the heat or climate control but it doesn't seem to be having an effect. Last week the coolant seemed to be running straight through, I was topping it up daily.

I'll remove some coolant this evening before driving tomorrow.

**Dee-C** · 13-05-2013,01:59 PM

Had the car booked in for the weekend of the 3rd May but Audi suggested having it longer as 1 Saturday wouldn't be enough to diagnose and repair the problem. Luckily I was out of the country last week so they asked me to drop it down on Saturday 3rd and collect it again on the 11th which worked out perfect for me and also gave them plenty of time to repair the car.

While away they kept me up-to-date with their 'Audi Cam' feature which is a really nice touch. They sent me a unique code to their site which had recorded videos of an engineer showing and describing the problem. It also listed a quote price for parts and buttons to confirm or decline the repair.

They first found a problem with the heater matrix pipes which had a quote price of £150 (incl VAT) this was for the parts, labour, 2 pressure tests and premium visual check.
After they completed the repair and pressure tested it the second time they found another leak which was a corroded coolant pipe. Quote price for this was also £150.
They pressure tested it again afterwards and all seems fine now. It come in at £298 so slightly under the quote price and they gave it a good wash for me too.

I've had a couple of repairs with Audi before but never to that extent but I'm very pleased with their work. It may be on the more expensive side but the standard of service is on another level really.

Fingers crossed it's all good now and I think I'll stick with Audi for any future repairs.