Nissan Primera P11-144 1.8 Over Heating

hi today had to put 4 litres of water in after a trip down motorway (needle was in the red) drove home (50 miles)checked water, had to add 1/2 litre it was dark by this time so could only check obvious stuff,I might add the car drove fine no lack of power no smoke no emulsifing on oil cap ect so was just wondering if anyone got any experience on this ?

 

ju5t wrote: There is also a topup tank on the primera's which has a flow valve on it these can fail ocasionally

A what  the bottle on a primera has an expansion bottle to well allow the expansion of water in teh coolant system there is no valve on it it is all done by heat and expansion of the water.  

pudj 

first off welcome to npoc, check your cooling fans are working, if these are not then it will overheat, 

When you put the water in did you wait till the engine had cooled? If not you may well have cause some damage (alloy head)

1/2 liter is a not a lot of water in a system that takes close to 8, when was it last checked it could well have been low before.

What i would do is run the car keeping eye on th temp gauge and make sure the twin coolant fans kick in, if not then this should be the first place to look.

Generally speaking on most cars, water leaks can be difficult to find sometimes as they may only leak at maximum pressure and then it suddenly changes from a damp patch to a jet usually when you aren't looking for it; hoses and radiators being favourite for that trick.  I've seen a narrow jet about a metre long on one car I had.

Another way is when the radiator leaks as a steadyish dribble it can dry out on the hot radiator in no time, so again you don't see much unless it's bad.

Don't forget the water pump, they leak once the bearing starts to wear, a leak can be the first sign a few hundred miles before total failure and all your water is dumped in a few minutes.  As you seem to have ruled out a blown head gasket, the pump is the one fault I would want to eliminate first as they fail big time and suddenly, although very rare on a Primera.

Another huge leak a friend had was with a Sunny which had core plugs in the engine; he didn't use antifreeze for precisely 6 weeks one summer and one core plug rotted through.

P11 and P11-144 Primeras must be the least troubled cars ever for water leaks though.  Even the P10 was good despite the radiator fins rotting.

if it's only weeping then when it's under pressrure it could well be a bigger leak,