Oh Yes. A Coolant Leak.
 

Began seeing spots on the driveway. Looked under the car, green fluid drip. Tried to find the start of the leak. Hope its the only spot leaking. Car is a 2004 6spd. This is what I found at the top. I will put it up on ramps to get a better look at underneath and wipe it down later. Any thoughts/troubleshooting tips to really narrow it down? Thanks. I keep close eye on the temp guage now if I have to drive it, and always make sure there is coolant in it before I drive it now. obviously keeping driving super limited. Will be getting it to my mechanic hopefully within the week. These pics were taken when the car was cooled off.

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Notice the fresh dripping.
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letting it get up to temp and find the drip then trace it to the root.

change hoses/tighten clamps if need be.

I had the same problem Bro, the nipple on the radiator broke off. Don't know how it just did. I went with a GodSpeed Radiator and hoses, big difference! During the heat waves we had this summer my engine would still keep cool without having the fan to come on making me think the fans were bad too but that wasn't the case, they worked, it just kept the car at a cool temp even after I would get on it!

If I have to replace radiator, I will probably order new hoses off racing beat and get a mishimoto radiator. but hopefully I only NEED the hoses. who knows what this leak is. will update when I find out more.

Be extremely careful if you have to pull the hoses of the radiator side.
That plastic nipple will give way in a heartbeat.

dont get mishimoto, i heard there were problems with them. its unfortunate, because their warranty is awsum.

maybe Koyo then?

maybe BHR rad? i forget... research what the race rx8s are using and go with that. I think 9k has a koyo and i think i recall him regretting getting it instead of another one.

Mine is leaking in the same spot. For a temp fix until I get a new hose I just disconnected the hose and cut a piece of it off and reattached it. Has not dripped since. It takes about 20 mins and is very easy to do.

*the upper radiator hose in the second pic looks to be the one leaking, at least thats the one in my car that was leaking and that looks exactly the same way mine did*

Hope this helps

That's where the thermostat is. It could be only a few things (hose or thermostat o-ring). Should be an easy fix. Be careful with the metal air pump gasket; it can cut skin open (ask me how I know).

BHR rad is really expensive. Im not looking to replace the radiator till after winter anyhow (unless I have to).. I just want as little things to go wrong with this car as possible for as long as possible. I need to save up a bunch in case things go seriously wrong. Im trying to just get the main things out of the way right now. So depending on what needs to be done with this leak, If its a cheap fix, I may buy and have my mechanic put in the racing beat gauges and all those sensors since Idk how to do that.

^A cheap, easy to install, and quite reliable way to get data from your car is the "scangauge." Connects to your OBD port and gets info such as water temp, voltage, load, cat temp, afr, and some others. Further, it reads and deletes all your cels. Scangauge has served me well. Of course if I had the money I would have bought Cobb Accessport. Gauges are expensive, go bad, and their readings are questionable sometimes. They look better though... Perhaps you may want to do some more research before you spend the money on gauges.

If your OEM radiator is still good, specially the nipple isn't brittle, there isn't a need to replace it. I initially bought Koyo because of the broken nipple and that was a whole lot of mess, missing hangers and wrong bolt holes. Returned it and got the Mishimoto which was a direct bolt on and only thicker than the OEM which made it snug in place. Quite a different experience 9krpmrx8 had. Besides using the car for track, the OEM was said to work better than the aftermarkets if the car's stricktly street driven.

I know about the scanguage. I was going to buy it to check CELs and what not. Idk what I'm gonna do yet. I will keep that as an option. I plan on getting a COBB some day. but not yet. there are a few things I would rather do with that money to the car first.

But Thanks all for the posts and advice. As an update, I put coolant in my car this morning, drove to school (11 miles) and parked it. Came back 5 hours later, rolled my car back 5 feet to check to see how large the stain was (like in my driveway) and there was nothing.. No sign of coolant leakage. I popped the hood, and I still had full coolant. I still need to get everything checked out but wtf.

my friends 04 (also yellow) was leaking in that same spot, we did the upper hose, and it didn't fix it, turned out to be the thermostat. that area is kind of hard to see into.

with the factory clamps, they are a constant tension, so if it leaks it needs a hose.

the upper hose is actually two pieces, there is a section that goes from the thermostat to an adapter, and then from the adapter to the radiator.

with it on check the nipple on the upper thermostat housing, its above were the upper radiator hose goes. See if there is coolant seeping from around there. I have seen several fail like that. If it is the cause, you will have to replace the upper thermostat housing

Anyone have some rough estimates in cost? how much to get it fixed from not a Mazda dealership and assuming I'm not getting ripped off by a local mechanic. Thanks.

you should have them pressure test it first and see where the leak(s) are actually coming from. the three radiator hoses were all about the same money, $30 each, thermostat was about $30 too, comes with the o ring.

the thermostat is actually difficult to change, its about an hour job.

Thanks man. I will have them do that.

Pretty easy to swap the rad, better to do it with the rad cuz u will have tp remove the 1/2 the same stuff

That's what I discovered tonight. I started to smell burnt coolant fluid in the cabin and noticed a drop of level this past week. No drips noticeable probably because it evaporated or burned after a drive but I finally popped the hood last night and noticed steam behind the battery box.

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