I bought a 93 ES from my uncle last year for my wifes commute and we both love it. Even though it has the usual problems of a 10 year old car, its still better than anything new we could afford.

Earlier this summer, our water temp almost redlined on us. Ever since then, we have been have occasional moments of overheating; or approaching red on the water temp. We would catch it and turn on the heater (real nice during rush hour in the summer). Mechanic keeps coming back to us with nothing wrong. Finally they put a new radiator cap on. It stopped for a few weeks. Now its overheating again.

Last spring we installed a new radiator because of a crack. It worked fine until this summer. The old radiator had a sealed cap on it and a hose leading to the fill cap on the engine. The new radiator has a removable cap on it now. The cap they replaced is the fill cap and not the radiator cap (that used to be sealed from Lexus).

I think I am loosing water through the head gasket, but any advice would be appreciated. I keep adding coolant. And looking at preivous articles, I may be putting in coolant the wrong way.

Any help? My mechanics need help too.

 

If after parking the car you didn't notice any coolant on the floor/street it could very likely be a defective head gasket. Sometimes this head gasket leak is very small so it makes it difficult to determine this problem though. Try doing this: Let the car cool off completely, than either have somebody look at the exhaust tailpipe while you start the car and see if you see white vapor/smoke coming out for a while. If you do, than that is where your coolant is going.

 

Thanks for the reply. I have not seen any leaks. This is why I suspect the gasket. I think I have seen the vapors you are talking about. I guess I will keep adding coolant until I get the car into the next couple weeks for a gasket. Its due for one anyway.

Speaking of which, I read a reponse on one of the artciles about adding coolant. I need to do this. I have not been following the procedure. I just put coolant in the reservior. I may be doing further damage to the gasket.. Any comments on this?

Thanks again