Help please

[alexwharton]

Hi my van has very bad coolant leak (fill it up and an hour latter its totally empty) its booked in for repair on thursday. If i put some water in tommow morning will it be ok to drive? Just been outside and car and van are already frosted and theres no antifreeze in there so dont wont to try and start it if anythings gona break cos its frozen.

[davidmac]

Driving with a leak as bad as that is dodgy to say the least as the engine heats up it will try and pressurize the coolant system forcing any water in the system out any holes that may be present .So a leak that takes an hour to drain naturally ,when pressurized could empty in minutes. Have you had a look for anything thats obviously leaking . Another factor is the freezing conditions no antifreeze at this time of year could spell disaster. A car will freeze quickly when moving due to the windchill factor. Another point to think about is this, if you attempt a journey and do get stranded due to no water and the temp gauge is sky high .The temptation to add cold water to a hot engine will be unbearable this will almost always result in an extra repair bill for a warped/damaged engine. So on the whole not a good idea to move with a serious leak like that :(

[spike]

I generally agree with davidmac. Unless the garage is only a few minutes away, its not worth the risk. Another thing to beware of is that when the water level drops dramatically the temperature gauge wont give an accurate reading or may not even register at all as the sensor needs to be immersed in coolant to work properly. So don't assume the engine is not overheating just because the temp gauge is not reading high.

Cheers Spike

[alexwharton]

Thanks for the advice guys