FIXED and RUNNING!!! Sudden loss of Coolant, steam coming from engine bay!
 

Let me preface this post by saying I absolutely love my X5 and I appreciate all the invaluable information I have received from this forum, it has made owning this car a lot less expensive! I am currently in a 2001 x5 4.4l but after work for the summer am going to look for a 2005 or 06 4.8is

But

Just took the X on a cross country drive from Arizona to Indianapolis and it performed extremely well. However, today as I was driving around I started smelling coolant and then got the Check Coolant Level notification on the dash, pulled over immediately and turned off the car, steam starting coming up from the left side of engine (as you looked at it from outside the car)

I got out and popped the hood and coolant was sprayed primarily around the AIRBOX and MAF area and steam coming from under the Engine Cover.

The car did not overheat at all during this process and I have never had a problem with the car overheating....

The Expansion Tank and one of the hoses was replaced last week actually (lost the damn clip and you have to buy the hose to replace the clip).

No coolant was spilling out of the expansion tank or anywhere on that side of the motor.

Is it bad to fill the expansion tank with distilled water, turn the car on and wait to see where the leak is coming from? Or is there a better way to determine the cause of the leak.


Any help would be appreciated, and a shout out to everyone who gave input on the Emission monitor problem I over came last week, I actually decided to become a premier member because of all the help I have received from the people on here

If it's coming up from the engine cover it could be the coolant pipe in the valley pan. Remove the engine cover and see if you see any coolant leaks. There's a way to repair the coolant pipe without removing the intake manifold. It does require removing the water pump and installing a stent .

Thanks for responding! I had the car towed back to my apartment complex (finally got some use out of AAA)

By now everything is probably dried off, maybe able to see some residual coolant that has dried. If what you're saying is the cause would it put coolant on top of the air box?

Personally I would fill it up with water and pressure test it. The coolant pipe is probably right but what if there are other leaks? I bought a harbor freight pressure test kit for and it worked fine to point out the leak in my e46 radiator. I went that route since I was worried I would replace the radiator or expansion and then find another leak after I put it all back together. If you do not want to buy one most shops will do the test for 50.00 or so.

No harm doing your troubleshooting with water. You are right to use distilled (or deionized) water instead of tap - avoid dumping minerals and chlorine in there if you can. Then drain the water via the radiator spigot (the block won't drain like this) and top off with 1 gallon of straight coolant (the system holds about 2 gallons of 50:50 mix, so this works out if you have mostly water in the system after troubleshooting and repair.

Hard to guess which part let go, but it doesn't sound like a subtle leak, so should be easy to spot.

If you haven't replaced all the other hoses, I would think about doing that now.

Yea it when from fine to coolant empty very quickly. I am gonna get into it this weekend to see if I can easily spot the culprit.

With how fast it drained the coolant can I roll out head gasket or water pump?

I think so. Most of the water pump is metal. If the seal fails, it can't empty that fast. And if it was a head gasket, that much coolant would have smoked out the neighborhood... However, if it did overheat, it might have stressed the head or head gasket as a secondary failure.

I believe the "stents" are made for the n62?

On the op m62 the coolant pipes are a slam dunk and only require 4 new orings. You can either remove the water pump or removed the collector/manifold that ties the heads together at the back of the engine. I prefer to remove the manifold at the back.

Op, check the lower radiator hose too.

It never over heated. From time I smelled coolant and noticed the steam I had turned the car off within seconds. Temp needle never moved at all so I am pretty sure I avoided any damage there.

I will check all that. I appreciate all the help. I am just thankful this didn't happen on the cross country drive.

not sure what you're referring to with removing a collector on the back side of the motor....I am gonna have to look at some parts diagrams to see what you're referring to