Bass

Well it finally happened. My car failed. I was just leaving Owen Sound last night when my low coolant level warning started chiming. ****. I pulled over and opened up the hood. Solid cloud of coolant vapour. I'm sure that that was good for the lungs! I let it cool off a bit and drove back into town and stopped at a hotel for some water. Filled the rad half-way and then saw it start to pour out from the back of the engine from somewhere under the behive. I go back into the motel to borrow a flashlight for a better look. No dice- the guy's fighting tears back as he just found his old lab dead. I feel like **** for bothering him and so off I go to a Tim Horton's at the other end of town. Get a flashlight-can't see a thing under that damn beehive. Let it cool off some more and head over to the (gulp...) Mazda Dealership. She's sitting in their parking lot now waiting for me to go up on Friday to deliver the keys for them to fix it. My logic for having the dealer look at it is:
1. It's a long trip back to Chesley driving like that
2. It's gonna snow before I get the chance
3. I figure that it's better for Mazda to look at it then some guy at another shop asking "a wankel what?"

I'm hoping that it's a blown hose under the beehive as I have seen some oil caked on what's underneath and the side of the rear housing. Or better, perhaps a slipped hose clamp. But in retrospect, I remember smelling a faint aroma of coolant a few days before and thinking " hmn...I should check that first thing in the Spring.


Any advice or ideas?

purple82

The hose blew on my 85 just the way you describe. Unfortunately, I didn't have any warning and toasted the water seals.

Metallic_rock

have someone pour water in and look to see where it is coming out... if it's just a broken hose, no biggy... just fix it yourself!!