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Hello boys, so I am enjoying my ISF for 2 months already (15k km), and today after a morning run to the grocery shop I've noticed smokes coming from the front grill and it has a weird smell. I've read that sometimes pink cooling liquid sprays over the engine. Is that's it? How do you deal with that? Do I need to clean it? If so how do you clean it? Thank you
Does it smell kinda sweet? Pink in a Toyota is going to either be coolant (more likely) or transmission fluid (less likely), but you'll want to differentiate, as transmission fluid is flammable, and if you're leaking coolant then you're a prime candidate for overheating and head gasket issues in the near future.
It kinda smells sweet. But not the same as from the bottle which I use as a coolant. The weird part is that sometimes I abuse ISF to the 5 bars oil temperature, but today it was 3 all the time and I wasn't pushing it that hard. Should I be worried? Are there any things I could check myself to see what kind of problem it is? It has 180k on ODO.
So I've checked under the hood 5 hours later creating this threat. The coolant tank is filled with chocolate color liquid. It's filled to the top. See the images attached. Once I noticed smoke and leak coolant tank was the half-full but bright pink color ~5 hours ago. There is leak under the car too. Coolant feels oily. Please help understand whats going on. What should I do? Thank you
Not to jump to a conclusion, but based on the above photos and description, it appears your radiator failed internally, resulting in coolant mixing with transmission oil. I believe the IS-F does utilize the main radiator to also cool the transmission. I'd stop driving the car ASAP and tow it to a garage.
At this point, if you caught this early enough, the situation may be salvageable by flushing your cooling system and transmission both, and replacing the radiator of course. The real issue lies within coolant not having adequate lubricating properties, a lower evaporation point and so on. All to say, if this goes on, it can cause damage within your transmission to say the least. I'd imagine the reverse (oil in coolant) could also harm the engine if internal cooling passages become gunked up. Good luck and keep us posted!
UPDATE. So I towed the car to the service. The coolant tank is half empty. Liquid color hasn't changed. Before it was full. Some images of the leak. I can see red, black and white liquids.
I've checked the oil, but I cannot tell if it contains coolant.
Hard to say based on one small pic, but if I had to guess just from that I'd say the engine oil looks ok and its trans fluid mixing with coolant. Prob means its time for a new rad but I guess we will find out soon enough.
Anyways though, good luck man. Let us know what the shop says. Very interested.
Hard to say based on one small pic, but if I had to guess just from that I'd say the engine oil looks ok and its trans fluid mixing with coolant. Prob means its time for a new rad but I guess we will find out soon enough.
Anyways though, good luck man. Let us know what the shop says. Very interested.
Agreed, but please run your oil level at the top mark on the dipstick, not the bottom mark.
So the dealer told me that the radiator is cracked and coolant got into the transmission. They suggested me to wash it 3 times (10l of transmission fluid) to wash the coolant and that's it. I started asking questions around and everyone told me to run away from this dealer since that's a quick fix and won't last long for transmission. So I found a guy who specializes in transmissions and he has a device where he washes transmission with pressure (20-30l of transmission fluid), opens it, and rebuilds it. I will be taking my car to him. Transmission rebuild cost 1.5k EUR. In total it will be ~2k EUR with new radiator
So the dealer told me that the radiator is cracked and coolant got into the transmission. They suggested me to wash it 3 times (10l of transmission fluid) to wash the coolant and that's it. I started asking questions around and everyone told me to run away from this dealer since that's a quick fix and won't last long for transmission. So I found a guy who specializes in transmissions and he has a device where he washes transmission with pressure (20-30l of transmission fluid), opens it, and rebuilds it. I will be taking my car to him. Transmission rebuild cost 1.5k EUR. In total it will be ~2k EUR with new radiator
Yep, sounds like the cause most of us were expecting. You do you man. I'm no expert but if it was my car I'd do what the first dealer recommended and do a simple flush with 10L of trans fluid and see how it ran before I'd bother with a complete rebuild. I thought you said the car seemed to be running fine even?
I'm sure the latter is the more thorough option and will have the best result... and if this was being performed under warranty I would definitely want it done that way... but if it was coming out of my own pocket (assuming the latter is much more expensive) it would seem like a bit overkill and I'd go with the first option and only go further if it needed it after that. Curious to see what others here have to say.
Either way, best of luck and I hope everything turns out well.
06-28-20, 12:39 AM
LEXUS ISF smoke coming from front grill.
All stop
