I have had the car for over 3 years and it has never used a drop of water.

However, over the past 6 weeks it has required 3 top ups. There are no visible leaks, so where could it be going?

Thanks

Steve

Is there any white gunge under your oil filler cap?

No.

Steve

A shot in the dark but this still basically the venerable 1.9 TDI ( wot I got, a 1998 one mind)

If so................... there is a Y shaped rubber hose which lies down the front of the block, the rear of it can/will get oily, perish & leak.

And it therefore dribbles down the block and is very hard to see or trace.

I had trouble locating this leak ( after the mechanic failed twice to do so)

The local VW garage kept the replacment Y shaped hose on the shelf, a regular occurance he said.

Edited 6 July, 201015 yr by dieseldogg

It 'could' be a leaking/corroded radiator (which my old Passat B5.5 suffered from at 80,000mile). Or a hose or a leaking head/gasket.

Just guessing though.

A shot in the dark but this still basically the venerable 1.9 TDI ( wot I got, a 1998 one mind)

If so................... there is a Y shaped rubber hose which lies down the front of the block, the rear of it can/will get oily, perish & leak.

And it therefore dribbles down the block and is very hard to see or trace.

I had trouble locating this leak ( after the mechanic failed twice to do so)

The local VW garage kept the replacment Y shaped hose on the shelf, a regular occurance he said.

Have you got any pictures ?

Radiotwo

water pump?

Tom

I think with the dreaded 170 hp PD TDI the probability is very high that it is the usual cracked head......which would be rather bad news ......

Re the water pump/ vis-a-vis leaking Y hose

I was convinced it was almost certainly the water pump as this is the vininity of the engine the water was dripping off.

Plus with 190,000 miles on the origional water pump...... hey its gotta be knackered, seemed a reasonable conclusion anyway.

Cept it wasnt, it was absolutly perfect....................... but I changed it anyway.

I will attempt to att this photo, its the hose behind the dip-stick, it feeds the oil cooler as well.

right heres hoping

nope, I canny, since I got the image stored on my work computer, it appears i need to host it on a whatchamacallit site for to have a the url thinnigy as requested.

cheers

M

Edited 7 July, 201015 yr by dieseldogg

I think with the dreaded 170 hp PD TDI the probability is very high that it is the usual cracked head......which would be rather bad news ......

Microcracking in the head is the price people can pay when remapping PD engines. Water disappears into the cylinders and goes out the exhaust. No fix is possible - usually people sell their car pronto and neglect their duty of disclosure to the next buyer.

I had this problem with my MK Golf GT TDI

every few weeks the coolant light would appear and I confirmed no gunge on my oil cap which rules out head gasket and it turned out to be a cracked radiator, you wont see any leaks as the coolant evaporates within mins of dripping out of the radiator

see if you can check the radiator grille