Disappearing coolant on Golf 2.0 TDI

[dieselcar]

Hi everyone, new to the forum, so please bear with me.
Bought a new Golf 2.0 TDI back in June this year, everything works fine except the coolant keeps disappearing. Over a period of ~1000km (which is two weeks of driving for me) the coolant level would drop from the middle of the coolant tank ( so above the MAX level) way down to the MIN level. Initiallly the service department at a Dealership in Melbourne told me that 'cause it's a new engine there could be air pockets in the coolant piping which can take a few km's of driving to disappear. After the 2nd top up of coolant I requested it to be looked into further. The service guys then did a pressure test and replaced one of the coolant pipes. A few weeks passed and yet again the coolant is disappearing so back to the dealership. This time they couldn't fault any thing but decided to change the coolant tank ( for which there wasn't any spares so had to wait three weeks for it to be delivered). Got that changed over but to no avail, coolant still disappearing by the same amount. So back to the dealership and they then got Volkswagen Australia to assist and dig deeper. After 3 days at the dealership they found the EGR cooler valve (Exhaust Gas Recirculator) contained coolant residue, so replaced that (for which there were spares). BUT still no joy, the coolant is still disappearing. There is no obvious sign that there is leak in the head as the oil is as it should be (no signs of being milky). NOR leaks that are obvious with the heater. Getting tired of going back to the dealership even though the car is still under warranty, so thought I give this forum a try. Annoyance is creeping in, but the car runs OK. I can feel the turbo kick in at about 2000 revs, so no fault in performance at this stage. Has or is anyone experiencing the same problem OR suggest a dealership or someone else that knows how to fix this???

[Bug_racer]

Which state / suburb you in ?

[peter_j_g]

Have you done a pressure test both hot and cold? I've heard of a case where pressure was OK when cold, but when the engine was hot there was a small leak.

With the G12 coolant you get a pink sludge appearing where there are leaks, so it's quite easy to see.

[brackie]

A pity that it's problem that brought you here (and disappointing that it has emerged!) but it's good to have another TDI owner aboard.

Leaking coolant only goes to one of three places:
*down the exhaust as steam
*into the oil
*onto the driveway

It seems that your investigations so far have ruled out the latter two, so it must be entering the combustion process or passing into the exhaust post-combustion. G12 residue definitely shouldn't be present in the EGR valve and it's unlikely that the valve itself is at fault (although these devices have been a constant problem for owners of new Peugeot diesels). It's looking like a head gasket fault but you must keep on pressuring the dealer as the problem could end in disaster for the motor and we all know how dealers like to place blame elsewhere.....

[dieselcar]

Bug racer, I'm in Melboure, Victoria

Peter j g, I can only assume the dealership did both hot and cold pressure tests.

Thanks Brackie, looks like it's back to the dealer to try and solve it.

[wheelzy72]

Could be a water pump leaking at the seal, sometimes will only leak when cold, when pressure tester is put on the pressure pushes the seal against the w/p sharft and seals it so it won't leak under pressure, or when hot as cooling system is under pressure as well?

[gmhendo]

G'day, and welcome to the forum
I'm no expert here, but I did figure the following:
Distance travelled = 1000km and @ average 60kph that is about 17 hours of driving (16.7). I have to guess, but I reckon you might have lost, say 250 ml of coolant. It might be more, maybe less, but you can adjust these figures accordingly. So if we lost 250ml over 17 hours, that is less than 15ml per hour, or 0.25ml per minute. That is it would take around 20 minutes to leak one teaspoon. You would be lucky to see the leak in that beautiffully designed engine compartment. My guess is that the dealer's pressure test would have to be pretty sustained to detect a leak of that magnitude, unless they did an overnight leakdown test or something. How good was their test? The numbers are pretty small and hard to detect.
I'm afraid I can't offer any real wisdom here, except repeat Brackie's advice to not let the dealer blow smoke up your exhaust...
Hey when you get it resolved, please post the outcome
Best of luck
Hendo

[dieselcar]

the high pressure testing was also done overnight, and nothing showed up.
The latest is that VW australia has logged a fault with
VW Germany and germany have suggested testing be done on the turbo and then onto the heads, it's in their hands and hopefully it will be fixed soon.
Keeps ya's posted with the outcome.

[DubSteve]

the high pressure testing was also done overnight, and nothing showed up.
The latest is that VW australia has logged a fault with
VW Germany and germany have suggested testing be done on the turbo and then onto the heads, it's in their hands and hopefully it will be fixed soon.
Keeps ya's posted with the outcome.

Far out!!!

This does not look good for you at all dieselcar. It's a mistery the problem that you have in the car, not good at all.

[dieselcar]

Just an update with my diesel engine, a few weeks prior to christmas the cylinder heads were sent away for testing and no leak was found, so Volkswagen Australia finally decided to replace the whole engine, mind you its taken them over two weeks to tell me when the new engine was arriving, only after persisting with management did I get a response, supposedly today, but having the poor customer experience I have had with Volkswagen thus far, I'll believe it when I see it.
Let's hope this new engine has no new problems to deal with.