LEHIII

I have discovered that I have a coolant leak in my 1997 A8 when it is cold and has been sitting. If I am driving the car and it is hot, there is no leak.

By way of background, my 1997 has 203,000 kms on it. The timing belt and water pump were replaced in February of 2001 at 144,000 kms. In addition, about a year ago at 160,000 kms I installed a new radiator.

There is no leak from the rad - the leak appears to be coming from the front of the engine. I am suspecting that I may have a water pump problem - but wanted to see if anyone has any other ideas on what the problem might be. If the car sits overnight in my garage, the coolant bottle will drop about 3/8" - but I can drive it all day and that level will not change.

I'm presuming that I will have to take the front cover off to rectify - would you agree that at that point I might as well do the timing belt, water pump etc. given that I am in there anyway?

Thanks

Lauren

PaulW

Here's a link to a thread posted by me, but once again my tracked threads got wiped out, skiracer and Steve Wiseman performed this repair on the oil cooler. It has two little plastic coolant pipes that go to it that end up leaking. It's right under the right front of the motor at the oil filter.

We'll have to find the other thread that has the whole procedure.<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/a8/msgs/19759.phtml">https://forums.audiworld.com/a8/msgs/19759.phtml</a</li></ul>

skiracer

the short plastic pipe that carries coolant from the block to the oil cooler. These have been failing on several A8s. The reason it only leaks when cold is because the thermal expansion of the metal seals the leak when the engine heats up. Let us know where the leak is coming from!

SWiseman

As Paul and Doug have both refrenced, you are describing the same coolant leak I dealt with earlier this year. There is a short plastic/nylon pipe with O-rings on each end that can fail on the oil cooler. If you see Paul's post there is a link that will take you to the thread where we discussed this proplem earlier. Parts to correct the proplem are not expensive, $25-40 for parts. Pulling the oil cooler is labor intensive, however. Other's with the problem had mechanics attribute the leak to the water pump. This is easily checked by taking the left belt cover off and checking the water pump for signs of leakage. Your cooland loss description is the same type as I experienced. I wonder how many of these have to fail for Audi to address the problem. Good luck &amp; let us know what you find.

KMU

Same problem just as described. The repair posts were a great aid!

LEHIII

Thanks folks. My mechanic does not think that it is the water pump and as Paul asked, my leak is in the right front corner so it looks like the oil cooler problem has surfaced again.

I'll let you know if that is indeed the case.