I took my car in for the 15K service at the dealership last week. Today I get home and decided to pop the hood and saw the coolant seeping out from under the cap. The engine temperature was fine and non error codes were thrown. I waited until the car was cold and checked the coolant level and it was all the way to the cap, well above the cold fill range. Can I just take a turkey baster to it and siphon the excess? Also could this have done any damage to the car as I have been driving with it overfilled for 10 days. Gotta love your Ford dealer

 

I woud think that nothing would be wrong if you did that. I dont think anything would be damaged, pressure builds in there, but if it leaked out, then pressure was escaping. On top of that, I dont know how the S197's are, but in one of my former cars, when the car was sitting, the level in the overflow would be an inch higher than when the car was running. As long as no error codes came up and th temp was fine, I'd say you were good to go!

 

anyone else feel free to prove me wrong. But i am pretty sure the tank has a cold fill level purely to make sure that there is room for expansion. The coolant leaking out should be a sign that the system is working fine with pressure build up forcing excess out. There by i would venture to say no damage has been done other than the mess created by the leaked coolant. and yes. you should be able to siphone it down to a normal level without issue.

 

Thanks guys. I love this forum Will siphon her tonight when she's nice and cold.

 

I'm not looking at my car right now, but what do you mean "leaking out from under the cap"? Isn't there an overflow tube? Shouldn't it be coming from that?

 

Check out these 3 threads too:
http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showthread.php?t=69294
http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showthread.php?t=53511
http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showthread.php?t=50271

True, they probably over filled it but also check if the cap is seated right. I noticed mine doesn't seat right each time. Gotta play with it a bit. I lost 90% of the fluid in the reservoir because of that.

Oh, and also make sure they didn't overfill your brake fluid (it should not be all the way to the top). A lot of folks have had fluid leaking out and damaging the paint.

 

I am putting a Canton burp tank on my car tomorrow and considered plugging the hole where the overflow vent comes out. After discussing this with Cali HP Addict he advised me not to do this because there needs to be an escape for the pressure if it is too high. I didn't realize that the stock cap is a 16# pressure release cap.