Car was parked in the garage over the winter and said there was a small amount of coolant on the ground?

OWENCAIN

MEMBER
1999 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA
230,000 MILES

I am interested in purchasing a 1999 volkswagen jetta from a seller on kijiji, but they told me that the car was parked in the garage over the winter and said there was a small amount of coolant on the ground and that they believed it was online a dried or cracked line. I asked them to take a better look at it and they told me they werent able to identify where exactly the leak was coming from but said it hadnt leaked very much over the past week. Could you give me some insight as to what is happening and what my best/worst case scenarios would be?

1 Reply

SQM

MECHANIC
6,383 POSTS

Hello,

There could a number of reason why this vehicle is leaking coolant.
You need to be skeptical when trying to determine what's might be going on as you cannot check to see what is leaking.
A cooling system can leak from several different places.
It can be any of the hoses, radiator, water pump, thermostat housing, heater core, from the engine itself.
Unless they can confirm you exactly what is the leak, assume the worse.
It could a wrapped manifold due to a overheating issue and the block is leaking. Which will need major overhaul.
Then again it can simply be a hose that is leaking and could be a simple replacement.
Also these VWs have issues with coolant bypass hoses, they tend to leak on higher mileage cars. Those hoses are on the back of the engine and very hard to access.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/engine-cooling-system

Hope this info helps.
Let me know of any questions.

Thank you.

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