Passenger side footwell coolant leak?

[Andiroid]

Hi all, stepped into my car tonight and smelt a sweetish smell. Wondered what the heck it was. Had a short drive home and discovered the temp gauge rising a bit. Checked out the coolant and it was almost empty. Filled up, noticed a leak underneath passenger side behind the engine and a bit leaking behind the front passenger side wheel. I the noticed that the footwell was wet and there was a leak inside as well.

Any ideas? I think I can smell the $$$$ in this one..

Thanks

Andrew

[Cool Jesus]

Arghhh, another one wanting us to mind meld and know what car he's talking about....

Anyhow, smells like heater hoses have failed on ya mate. At worst the heater radiator/exchanger could be ruptured. Cost? Which car?

[Craig_m67]

No doubt brought on by the recent use of the heater?

I'm not sure if the 147 uses the same heater matrix as my 156 however you are likely to have a leaking one of these (pic and link is 147), or if lucky associated hoses or tap.



http://forum.alfa156.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=54882


The tap bit is important as you may be able to quell the leak (until you save up enough money for somebody to dismantle your dash to get to all this) by turning the heater temp to cold. If it's anything like the 156 it will have a servo assisted tap which will close (the warm coolant feed) when you set the temp to cold.

Do this, wait for all the gubbins to whir into action, freezing your feet and then turn it all off.
Hopefully the leak will stop and you can study/plan/save up for the job

[Cool Jesus]

Not wanting to be the voice of doom and gloom. If you have coolant inside the car your up for the heat exchanger, try Craig's suggestion to confirm the worst. I shudder at the labour charges to do that job. Then again I'm not good at estimating labour costs as I do all my own work. Coolant outside would indicate the hoses have a problem as the hoses don't go through the firewall. So you may be up for both. I'm changing my top and bottom radiator hose on the 147 at $170 odd for parts, so I'd figure about that price range for the heater hoses as I think they come as a pair. Mind you the best outcome may simply be a loose hose end shooting coolant towards the firewall into the car? Or the heaters hard pipes are fractured out there, which is odd to occur.  At a guess I'd imagine a heat exchanger can be found for about $150, it's the labour that will hurt.

[colcol]

A heater core is about $280, off ebay from Australia.
Have a freind who is a mechanic and he is now doing a lot of VT Commodore and AU Falcans, and its about $1500 to change a leaking heater core, so a 156 would be round about that?.
I would take it to an Alfa Romeo specialist who has done it before and knows the pitfalls.
It would be a terrible job to do, no matter how you look at it.
Thats why coolant is so important these days, don't change it and it turns into acid and corrodes everything, Colin.

[Craig_m67]

Glad you got it sorted, Spring is on the way (25degC here on these verandah) !!

Technically it's not that difficult to replace, it's just a bugger to get at. If your inclined, have a go yourself. You will have to dismantle the majority of the dash to get at the ventilation system. Removing the seats would help enormously.  If you've ever removed the radio, you know it all just comes apart in layers.

I removed the fan (bottom left footwell) from mine once to clean up the motor (dripping water, rust) and it was a complete twisted back, upside down nightmare, that said it's just screws and common sense .... which you will pay somebody else to curse at by the $hour.

An OEM heater matrix/core is available at all the regular UK suppliers and on eBay UK quite cheaply