Hi NAM Members

My car has been acting up lately. I didn't know I was low on anti freeze and yesterday my the yellow / red anti freeze light popped up. I quickly drove to MINI dealer ship, got anti freeze some distilled water and did a (60% anti freeze / 40 distilled water) mixed recommended by the dealership.

After all that is done I notice the light/icon was gone but another problem popped up. The heater takes forever to warm up. I drove the car for 15 minutes and have heater at max temp at medium speed. All I feel is a slight stream of warmish cold air coming out.

Anyone know if this problem was related to my anti freeze?

Thanks

 

First of all, where did your coolant go? While you were at the dealer did you have them check the thermostat for leaking? The thermostat may be stuck if all you are getting is luke warm air.
If your coolant continues to go down, most likely you've got a leaking thermostat/housing.
Also, if coolant was low enough to shoot a symbol, you might have air in the line which is not allowing proper flow.
Also, make sure the ***** on the vents are in open position. LOL

 

You have to bleed the air out of the cooling system.
There's a bleeder screw on the top right side of the engine, next to the thermostat.
You'll probably have to add a little more antifreeze after you bleed the air out.

Or you could bring it back to the dealer and have them bleed the air out.

Dave

 

Re-check your coolant level to be sure it's still in the operating range. When the coolant is low, one of the first signs is poor heater performance. It's possible that, after you refilled it the first time, there was still some air trapped in the system, and you'll find it's low again. Top it off, then keep checking it until you're sure it's staying full. In an extreme case, the system might need to be bled; not sure how to do that myself, but other threads on the forum discuss it.

If this sort of thing (low coolant level) continues, you may have a leak somewhere in the system, and you'll want to investigate a few areas to try to determine where the problem lies:

• Leaky thermostat
• Reservoir (overflow) tank -- they're known to crack and leak fluid
• Leaky water pump
• Worn radiator hose -- there's a hose under the front of the car that can sometimes come lose from it's support mount and drag along the ground, wearing a flat spot (and eventually a full-blown hole) into it.

Good luck!

 

I just went outside and checked.

My antifreeze tank is empty. There must be a leak somewhere. I top it off yesterday to the recommended max line on the reservoir. Now it's all gone. I parked outside and it was raining last night so I don't know if it all leak to the bottom of the car.

Where are all these place located?

• Leaky thermostat (Can I spot it with my nake eye?)
• Leaky water pump (where is the pump?)
• Worn radiator hose (the little hose under the reservoir?)

Thanks for all the help

 

*thermostat-drips onto transmission and dries too fast so it doesn't leave a puddle (unless it's really bad)
thermostat is on right side of engine
*water pump is on left looking at engine and standing outside. Have to get under the car to see unless there is coolant on ground.
*radiator hose under front on radiator, not the tubes on the coolant bottle.
My 07 would lose coolant every othr day and found it to be the thermostat. Not real common on 07's but my SA/MA says they have changed a few.
Be sure to use the Mini blue coolant or Zerex G-05.
Good luck.