If you have a bad head gasket, could you lose coolant and not see any trace of it on the ground? I have to add coolant to my car every couple of weeks but it doesn't leak anywhere on the ground. The car runs fine though so I didn't think it was a head gasket. My car is an auto trans car.

 

In truth sometimes HG failures are tricky because they can pass certian tests and are not always what they seem. It is very possible that you have a very early HG problem and are burning small amounts of coolant ( this is why you don't see any on the ground or white smoke yet either)and you will not overheat at this time. what you don't want to do is just tear apart the motor if you don't need to. A failed/failing HG can pass a compression test. you can do some tests though, you can rent a coolant system pressure tester, place it on the radiator but do not pump it up! let the motor run for 5-10 min and see if the gauge build pressure 10-12psi or so if it does then I would would stringly say yeah HG, what is going on is combustion gases are what is building up the pressure ( this is why you didn't pump up the tester), you could also go to a garage with a gas analizer and have them hold the sniffer over radiator ( with the cap off) and detect HC. you can also rent a scope and look into the cylinder and look for a washed down piston. these are easy ways of checking a sneaky HG that wants to pass other tests or is in its early stages. Other ways you can get coolant into the combustion chamber are via the intake and EGR spacer and also be checked

 

That's great info! I rarely drive the car so over the next few weeks I'll have plenty of time to run some of these tests. Thanks for the info and for contributing.

 

A local club guy had the same issue, he had a very early stage leak actually the same issue you have he would just have to add small amount of coolant over a certain period ( his car was a weekend/fair weather toy) it went a few years or maybe a little longer than that w/o an issue other than a coolant top off. he finally found the bad spot during a top end h/c/i swap. it was very small between two rear cylinders.

If you where having some tail pipe smoke, over heat or other issue then i would go more aggressive. you can go along time w/o an issue or not, they can be funny like I stated. they can be tricky or just blow out or on the slimmer side come from another source ( most of the time the other source is from working on or changing the intake or egr spacer and a mistake was made).

Best of luck.

 

problem fixed i pulled the computer cleaned all electrical on the car no more codes car runs great thanks for all your help i learned alot threw this process i owe you skunk

 

Really glad to hear everything worked out that's awsome