Coolant Low on New 2011 Ranger 2.3L - HG?

[ARCOgraphite]

My coolant has been going down over the past week - now below ADD line on the reservoir. This is not a overflow tank open to atmosphere. Lots of bubbles in tank with engine running after I get off highway hot. Tailpipe is carbon black with white salty spots all over the inside. Car idles rough, mechanical hard knocks periodically, misfires periodically. NO MIL lamp lit. I have not have a code six scan performed yet. Question to current or previous Ford owners of this specific engine - do you normally get excessive air perculation/bubbles into the reservior when the T-stat is open and engine hot and running? I am unfamiliar with this system. It would take an Act of Hashem to get this to the dealer, so I dont want to waste time if the collant bubbles are "NORMAL". This is Mazda/Ford 2.3 DOHC motor. My continuing bad luck. Thanks guys.

 

[urchin]

ARCO:

Are you for real??

My question is have you done anything with the coolant system on your own. eg replaced the coolant, added anything to it, ect.


As far as bubbles if you didn't do any work to the coolant system they should not be there. Did you check to make sure the cap is on correctly and that it is not faulty. See if you can try another cap.

Sorry to have to say this BUT the car is new and under factory warranty..stop playing with it and take it to a dealer that you have some trust in. Drive a bit out of the way if that will get you to a store that you have trust in.

Let the dealer check it out. If nothing else they can document what you are seeing so that if there is an early failure they will repair it in good faith even if the warranty is expired.

Bottom line get stuff like this documented in writing on your end and their end, these notation needs to go into the dealer RO system.

 

[JHZR2]

sounds like a head gasket. Take photos of the bubbling, salty deposits, low coolant level, etc. Document, document.

You MUST be doing something wrong to have so many issues. Ive seen coolant levels drop on new cars before, this happens, the seals arent perfect it seems... But you have the worst problems.

 

[FL_Rob]

You MUST get it back to the dealer ,no matter what it takes or you'll be totally "you -know -what".Something is WAY WRONG with that engine.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
sounds like a head gasket. Take photos of the bubbling, salty deposits, low coolant level, etc. Document, document.

You MUST be doing something wrong to have so many issues.
Not a thing that I am aware of - but like I said gasoline is TERRIBLE up here. I changed the oil and put in 4qt QSGB and Motorcraft filter. Never had the Pressure Vessel cap off - I did check that its tight.
Ever hear of infant mortality? I work in QC and at least 5% off all new product is bad - and this stuff is a lot simpler than a car. I guess I'm destined to get all of the "dead infants"

 

[Nick R]

Document everything, and take it to the dealer. It sounds like you have a bad headgasket out of the gate, or something nearly as bad.

 

[OVERKILL]

It sounds like the rest of the vehicles you've owned, LOL!

Seriously, you must have some sort of curse on you. There is nobody else on earth I've ever heard of that has had as many bad vehicles as you have.

 

[hattaresguy]

Sounds like a bad HG, either take it now or wait for the engine to blow. Either way the warranty will pick it up.

 

[Drew99GT]

Did you add ZDDP to the cooling system Arco???

 

[mechtech2]

You have problems. Major ones, I suspect.
Call the dealer and explain the symptoms, first. Don't let them tell you this is normal.
Try and arrange for a loaner - this car is new.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I showed the hot engine and coolant flow on my truck to a super enlightened automotive guru (he just rebuilt a corvair california turbo 6), and he said that since the tank had inflow from the head return line and it was at the highest point, that this was just a piddle return from an air scupper and it may show air bubbles from time to time - especially if the engine was run at high rpm on the highway. IDk about all the bubbles in a pressurised system and I dont think 2700rpm is all that high - but I will monitor the and get the truck to the dealer after Memorial Day so they can top off and monitor if required. I just read these duratec 2.3L DOHC mazda/ford engines have cast in iron bore liners into the Al casting and moly slipper skirt pistons - sounds rugged.

 

[addyguy]

The fact that it is bubbling AND loosing colant would worry me.

Some heads aren't torqued perfectly from the factory, and the HG leaks a bit. Most liklely, a simple re-torque of the headbolts will fix this.

Get the dealer to check this out.

 

[wander2039]

From someone that has had one all of that sounds about right with that 2.3L. If I remember right all of them in the Rangers loose a little coolant. Mine had what might be considered a miss but I think it was just a odd balance of the engine. Granted I only kept it up to 32K but I still see it around town all the time. I think you're alot like me a few years ago worrying about every little noise etc.. stop worrying so much your hair will fall out!

 

[mechtech2]

Arco-
"a piddle return from an air scupper"?

A real GURU.

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: urchin
ARCO:

Are you for real??

My question is have you done anything with the coolant system on your own. eg replaced the coolant, added anything to it, ect.


As far as bubbles if you didn't do any work to the coolant system they should not be there. Did you check to make sure the cap is on correctly and that it is not faulty. See if you can try another cap.

Sorry to have to say this BUT the car is new and under factory warranty..stop playing with it and take it to a dealer that you have some trust in. Drive a bit out of the way if that will get you to a store that you have trust in.

Let the dealer check it out. If nothing else they can document what you are seeing so that if there is an early failure they will repair it in good faith even if the warranty is expired.

Bottom line get stuff like this documented in writing on your end and their end, these notation needs to go into the dealer RO system.


X2. If the described problems are very noticeable and not just automotive hypochondria, you need to take it to the dealer.

Rangers DO lose coolant..out the top of the reservoir. That's just due to the fact that the cap's design is based on that of a Tums bottle. Everything else sounds abnormal.

Does the "mechanical hard knock" sound like it's from the engine block, head, etc? Could be nothing, could be something...hard to tell if the noise isn't present at idle so you can track the noise. Many Fords do have some pinging, and Rangers are not the quietest vehicles out there. AC clutches on them tend to be pretty loud when they engage/disengage and could sound like a "knock." Any noises will be even louder if the truck doesn't have underhood insulation (my XL four banger didn't, XLT V6 does).

 

[Warstud]

Bad HG on a 2011! WOW
Bubbles in the reservior tank are a sign of a bad HG.

 

[97f150]

Im not sure how your set up is, but you do mention reservior tank not being the same as normal reserviors, so I take it that you have a degas bottle. Do you have an actual cap on the radiator, or is the degas bottle the only way to add/check coolant?

Both my Ram and F150 has this set up. The degas bottle on my Ram has many many tiny bubbles in it when the tstat is open. Thats because there is a bypass hose coming from the top radiator hose feeding back into the tank in the neck of where the radiator cap screws on. Its not any big bubbles like I have seen on blown HGs before but almost like aeration bubbles. My F150 I have never paid attention to. It does lose the tiniest bit of coolant over a few months though.

If the bubbles are small I wouldnt worry about them too much, as it is named a DEGAS bottle for a reason. If you pop up a check engine light, or a bunch of coolant goes missing at once, milky oil etc etc, then I would get twisted. But not until then.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Thanks 97f150. I am unfamiliar with this "euro style" reservoir, but i guess its working as designed. Just never lost a pint of coolant on closed system in 2 months - but is is Summer. Now that I am buying gas 20 miles from my house at a new shell staion, then engine is running smoother and I dont seem to have a ton of carbon in the tailpipe (most ford 2.3 I've parked near the past couple months show no carbon). Maybe there was carbon + crust on the eads causing a "deck slap" and the good gas cleared this up? DOnt know if this car has a zero deck and a squish area. All It takes is one bad pug index on a marginal ignition. IDK wht ford is using gasketless Ir plugs on a lost spark coil setup - usually a dual plat plug with the large plat pills on each electrode work best in these lost spark app (2 coils for 4 plugs). How do you negatively fire a Ir finewire plug backwards consistently with a 56 thou gap?

 

[97f150]

I dont know about the spark plug issue, my F150 only has 1 coil. Ford has been doing weird stuff like that with the Rangers since the early 90s at least though. My uncle has a 91 4 cylinder that had 8 plugs lol.

I freaked a little about the bubbles in my Ram until I saw what was causing them. My experiance with both of my trucks and the 3/4 and 1 tons at work is that anytime the cooling system is opened, even taking the cap off, it will get air in the system and it is tough to bleed out. The only thing you can do is bleed the best you can by parking nose up and running up to operating temp with the cap off, then moniter and add for the next week or so. I have replaced several items in my truck (radiator, degas bottle due to crack, fan clutch etc) that required a hose to be taken loose and the system opened up, and despite trying to bleed the system 2-3 times after I still had to add after a week or so then everything leveled out. I have also noticed in these vehicles that coolant doesnt circulate through the degas bottle as you would expect looking in the radiator of a cooling system we are traditionally used to. The set up is totally different.

On a new vehicle, or one that recently had the cooling system opened up on, I would not worry unless I continued loosing coolant without a leak present.

 

[pushrod]

You have my sympathy, I had a 2001 ranger with that
engine and the degas tank boiled on a fairly regular
basis from new for 3 years until I traded it. Dealer
kept changing the thermostat. It never helped. The
thermostat had a electric open assist that always opened too late. If it isn't a head gasket, it may be
a casting defect in the block which happens on this
engine series. Ford ain't what it used to be, then
again what auto maker is?