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It’s never a good feeling to walk out to your car and see a puddle under it. As wishful as it is, a stray cat probably did not take a bathroom break under your car. The good news is, fluid under a vehicle may not be a bad thing. Here’s a quick primer on what you should or should not be concerned about when examining fluid that has accumulated on the ground.

Is your Volvo leaking fluid?

Color: Red
Texture: Greasy
Possible Fluid: Transmission Fluid/Power steering fluid

Almost without exception, the only fluid in your car that is red is ATF. Most modern cars have sealed transmissions so it is difficult or nearly impossible for you to access any fluid. For older cars though, there are multiple leak points, none of which are good. The first place to look is your transmission dipstick. Is the area oily? If so, there may be excess fluid in your transmission causing fluid to be forced out.

Another location where ATF can leak is the power steering. At least on older Volvos, the manual calls out ATF as the fluid of choice for the power steering system. Check your hoses for leaks, especially near the rack and the reservoir.

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Color: Golden or Black

Texture: Oily
Possible Fluid: Engine Oil

An old engine, unless meticulously maintained to the dot will usually leak oil. A small amount of dripping oil is not a bad thing. In fact, I would like to educate my readers that a slightly leaking engine will in fact prolong the life of your car since the leaking oil acts as a constant source of anti-rusting agent which spreads to many vital locations on your car. With a mechanical fan in front of my old B234F, I am confident that rust will never be an issue for any component in the immediate vicinity of my engine.

But don’t take this to mean that its okay for your engine to leak oil. If you need to constantly top up your engine oil, then something is wrong. A couple important places to look for oil leaks are:

  • Engine oil fill cap
  • Camshaft seals
  • Valve cover gasket

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Color: Clear/yellow
Texture: Oily
Possible Fluid: Brake Fluid or Differential fluid

This is rarely a problem, but good to look out for nonetheless. Brake fluid leaking is a very serious issue and needs to be looked at immediately for obvious reasons. Check your brake calipers, brake lines, and of course, your master cylinder. If you just performed a brake job, make sure that you didn’t overfill the master cylinder and that all your bleeder screws are tightened.

If the fluid feels very thick, then it is probably differential fluid. This fluid doesn’t need to be replaced often and if it is leaking, then your seals or gasket will need some maintenance, or maybe it’s a simple case of the fill or drain plug being a little loose.

Color: Clear
Texture: Watery
Possible Fluid: Air conditioning condensation

This is the best fluid to have under your car, and the most common underneath cars during the summer. If you park your car and see a steady drip of water coming out from under your car, it may be perfectly normal. As the air conditioning system operates, it pulls moisture from the air that passes through the evaporator. This moisture is simply collected in a trough and drained out from your car.

A high pressure stream of fluid escaping from your car is an entirely different story...are you sure that fluid isn’t green?

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Color: Green/Orange/Purple
Texture: Watery/slippery
Possible Fluid: Radiator Coolant

Aside from A/C condensation water, this is probably the second most common leak in your vehicle, and one that I am currently experiencing. As coolant comes in many different colors nowadays, it's sometimes hard to tell. Coolant can leak from numerous areas from hoses to the expansion tank, to the radiator itself. To narrow it down, here's what to look out for:

  • A damp interior carpet can mean your heater core is leaking. Pray this isn't your problem.
  • Coolant leaks from the radiator will show a stained area, usually with a sticky residue left over
  • Coolant leaks at the hoses can either be at the connection points or in-between. Again, look for sticky residue or a white residue. If the coolant is leaking from the connections, try tightening the hose clamps

As a final anecdote, I was chasing a dissapearing coolant issue. After looking under my hood after every drive and finding everything dry, I was resigned to performing a head gasket change. On a drive home while stuck in traffic, my coolant gauge shot up with no warning. I switched off the A/C and turned up the heat to keep things cool, as odd as that may sound, that's what you have to do. Stopping by the nearest parking lot, I popped the hood and saw a steady high pressure stream of water shooting from my radiator hose. It was an oddly wonderful sight, knowing that my head gasket may be okay after all.

What happened was, when my engine was running normally on the road and the highway, temperatures and coolant pressures were nice and steady. As soon as I hit traffic with my A/C running, the pressure and temperature shot up and would force coolant out of the pinhole leak in the hose. At first, the coolant loss would be slow, and so small that it wouldn't leave a trace as it would evaporate soon after hitting the exhaust manifold. As time wore on, the hole slowly got bigger and coolant loss would get more and more, exactly what I experienced until the hose just couldn't hold the pressure any longer.

So keep a look out under your car. A little bit of fluid is usually okay, but a constantly wet driveway may spell the need for a closer inspection.

 

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Written by :
Tim Wong

Tim is a Canadian from Windsor, with a knack for taking things apart, and sometimes putting them back together. He is a mechanical engineer by day and backyard mechanic by night. His mantra in life is to never break another bolt.


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