Major coolant leak!
 

Guys,

I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic last night when i noticed steam coming from under the hood. I pulled off to the side shortly after and i heard sounds like that of water/liquid boiling over coming from under the hood. After i opened the hood there was a lot of steam (not smoke ) coming out and i noticed a huge coolant leak from under the engine, it was literally raining and i am thinking a coolant line might have burst? I am not the most mechanically adept person on the planet so i thought i might share this to see if any of you out there has had similar experiences? Could it be covered under a recall/warranty that anybody knows of? Btw I drive a 2004 RX8 with only 30k miles on it ...

Were you able to isolate the leak?

If so, and you have the car, post a picture of where you're leaking coolant and more people will be able to help you.

I have not heard of a coolant recall, but one of the more experienced guys will be able to say for sure.

If it's a hose it won't be a warranty thing....but it will be inexpensive as long as you didn't cook it too much :(

If it' a coolant seal the engine block is covered till 100K miles

^agreed also we need a pic to help if it was pouring out there is a good chance it's a hose of somesort!

can you determine the source or general vicinity of the rupture or leak? how warm was the engine temp needle reading?

hmm... must be fixed by now then? I wanted to see what the problem was.

fIXED :)
 

Thanks for everyone who posted. I was able to get it fixed as it turned out to be a faulty radiator cap (which caused the leak under pressure). It was nighttime when the incident occured so I was not able to isolate the spot of the leak and i couldn't get it to leak again after pouring in more coolant, so i took it to Pepboys where they discovered it was a $10 radiator cap that caused all this trouble...which has me a lot more relieved but next time I will check the cap :)

glad you got the problem fixed. wonder if the seal got chewed up...

pretty easy fix at least!

I had something similar happen to me a in late October/early November. Turns out some critter chewed on the hose up by the overflow, which caused it to burst. It would have burst sooner except that apparently the sensor in the coolant bottle wasn't working (which is why I had an issue with the light blinking on and off despite topping off the fluid). I was told that because of that, the pressure was low in the lines. When the sensor was replaced it normalized the pressure, causing the hose to blow after about an hour of straight driving at highway speed. They replaced my hose for free.