Coolant leak in 2004 Nissan Quest - any advice?

[ajf3]

Hey all,My other car is a 2004 Quest with 7k left on the 100kextended warranty I bought... had a question about a problem I'm having that I was hoping to get some advice on...I noticed some fluid on the floor of the garage two weeks ago so Ichecked the levels... saw that the coolant was below the MIN line... topped it off and checked it again 2 or 3 days later - below the MIN lineagain so I topped it off again and took it into the garage telling themthat it was leaking coolant.They gave me a call and said that it wasn't a coolant leak, but that Ihad a loose oil line and it was leaking oil. When I checked the oilprior to bringing it in it wasn't low & they confirmed the same - oillevel was good even with the leaking oil line that they found. They offered to pressure test the coolant system & found no leaks. Sincethey fixed the oil line the coolant hasn't dropped at all either.I'm thinking that somehow (I don't know much about these systems), thecoolant was/is leaking into the engine oil & now that they fixed theloose oil line it's keeping it balanced.Is there a way to check to see if this is the case? I know itshouldn't be mixing, but don't know how to give them evidence that it is- plus they don't seem to be very interested in investigating it.Thanks!

[prathman]

Did the mechanic specify whether the "oil line" was for engine oil or transmission oil? With an automatic transmission you frequently have a line running to the radiator to cool the transmission oil. Depending on how that line attaches (I'm not familiar with the Quest radiator fittings), a loose fitting could lead to either a loss of transmission oil or coolant and I suspect your mechanic may have been mistaken about the type of fluid that was leaking. From your description (twice filling from below the MIN mark to the FULL line) it sounds like you were losing a significant amount of coolant. If even a decent fraction of that went into the engine oil I'd expect that you'd notice other symptoms such as excessive white smoke out the exhaust and/or a frothy residue on the oil dipstick.

[ajf3]

Thx for the reply - he didn't specify... the lady in service just knew that it was an 'oil line'.I haven't seen any white smoke or froth (but I'm going to check that again). How about a slight burnt smell from the exhaust? Not sure if it really has a tinge of burnt smell in there or if I'm just thinking it does since I'm now concerned about the engine!

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by ajf3 »Thx for the reply - he didn't specify... the lady in service just knew that it was an 'oil line'.I haven't seen any white smoke or froth (but I'm going to check that again). How about a slight burnt smell from the exhaust? Not sure if it really has a tinge of burnt smell in there or if I'm just thinking it does since I'm now concerned about the engine!Any oil in the coolant?? The missing coolant could be being burnt off, due to a bad head gasket... most times you'll get oil in the coolant if it's an internal HG leak... but to have it on the floor, IDK... keep an eye on it, make sure you get SOMETHING done before the warr goes away... that "could" be what they are trying to do, run it out so THEY don't have to pay for it... keep on top of it..