Coolant Loss - Overheating - Strange Issues

[VoyagerAndrew]

Hi Everyone, 

 

I have a Chrysler Grand Voyager 2.8 Executive - 57 Plate - Purchased secondhand - a fabulous multi use vehicle which I use for delivering household parcels for a well know courier company but it doubles up as a leisure car, and is the envy of other couriers particularly because of the leather, heated seats and the ability to hold small parcels on a scale of a transit van. 

 

All was well for about eighteen months, with occasional top up of coolant to topping up every morning. There was always a suspicion that there was oil in the coolant but I had the radiator flushed out, did an oil change last Summer (NO Coolant in oil) and as first thing to do strategy, changed the oil housing and the other water cooler component but still coolant loss. High pressure coolant pipe blew off in November, had them replaced.

 

Took it for three 'Sniffer Tests' two claimed to be negative and one said was positive (the last one in February 2021) I have used two different, branded, steel seal type products, the latter appears to have slowed the coolant loss but after starting and running the engine, which runs fine, the next morning, a puddle of water with a continuing drip of droplets is observed coming from somewhere above the drivers side steering rack, just a slow drip - 

 

This was all preceded around Christmas time, when the temp gauge shot up, but no coolant loss - I can't tell specifically what colour the exhaust smoke is - at first start up - just normal exhaust fumes - at half an hour, a lot more smoke neither white or blue but maybe more greyish but not black - AND Worth noting, after a forty minute warm up run, the engine has a slight misfire at idle - 

 

Is this classic Head Gasket failure or something simple - like water coming out of a turbo pipe (Webasto) but would that explain the smoke? 

 

There is unfortunately an air of cowardice amongst British motor repairers - all want an easy life and if they have to use their brains, start adding noughts on to the cost because they'll try to frighten you so that you abandon repairs just so they can wash their hands of any problems - quick money no headaches or lots of money and still no guarantees - 

 

As you can probably tell I am feeling frustrated. Does anyone have direct knowledge of this model, preferably if you own one of have had similar problem with this make and model? 

 

NOT BEING RUDE - but please don't answer if your Mothers cousin twice removed, once owned a mini with a modified Skoda diesel engine fitted on the roof and think its going to solve my problem - I need Chrysler Grand Voyager owners who know whats what. 

 

Best Wishes, 

Andrew.

[maxcaddy]

The key information you've missed is how many miles it has done, and by what you say, it sounds like it might be a lot.

 

If that's the case obviously everything is worn, and a few things more worn than others. So once you've found what's the main offender is (certainly suspect Cooling or Head) you'll have the decision to repair or not, and my advice is that if you can't fix it yourself you'll just be going down a long road of hurt.

 

In my case my 57 plate GV which I've had for 7 years has now 126K on the clock and only just scrapes through the MoT. As and when it fails on something significant, or the Head goes, or the Autobox, it will unfortunately go to the big recycler in the sky.

 

Sorry to piss on your chips, but if you rely on it for work, I suspect you'll need something which repairers recognise and can easily fix.

[SciTeach]

I was losing coolant with no obvious leakage.

 

However, one afternoon, after parking up I noticed a big pool of liquid under the car, checked the coolant and it was empty.  RAC duly called and the coolant pipe under the car had corroded.  The leakage was slow and steady until the pipe went altogether.  Duly fixed at my local garage.  May be worth you looking underneath to see if there is corrosion in a pipe.