2006 Aveo LS Steam from Under Hood

[Kathleen]

Got home from work tonight and our car started spewing steam when we pulled into the driveway and turned it off. Temperature was on high. Once it cooled off we checked the coolant and it is pretty much empty. There are two auto parts stores within 2 miles so praying we can make it there to get more coolant tomorrow. I suspect a radiator hose leak because I did see some fluid under the car. I don't want to harm the engine driving it. Is there any safe way to get it to the auto parts store? Can we put water in there just for the two mile drive?

I know my auto parts stores have the right hoses in stock from looking online.. I am just a little worried about how hard it will be to put in. I haven't replaced the radiator hoses before. It doesn't look difficult to do but I can't find any aveo specific steps for it anywhere and don't want to mess up. Do we replace the clamps too or just the hoses? We did change the battery on it a few months ago which was fairly easy. Car just hit 100k this week.

[HeavyDuty]

Got home from work tonight and our car started spewing steam when we pulled into the driveway and turned it off. Temperature was on high. Once it cooled off we checked the coolant and it is pretty much empty. There are two auto parts stores within 2 miles so praying we can make it there to get more coolant tomorrow. I suspect a radiator hose leak because I did see some fluid under the car. I don't want to harm the engine driving it. Is there any safe way to get it to the auto parts store? Can we put water in there just for the two mile drive?

I know my auto parts stores have the right hoses in stock from looking online.. I am just a little worried about how hard it will be to put in. I haven't replaced the radiator hoses before. It doesn't look difficult to do but I can't find any aveo specific steps for it anywhere and don't want to mess up. Do we replace the clamps too or just the hoses? We did change the battery on it a few months ago which was fairly easy. Car just hit 100k this week.

Yes you can fill it with water...but if it was mine I would not. You can buy treated water or purified water specifically for cooling systems now if I had this on hand I would do that. Tap water can be a little tuff on things but yes it will work. If your going to fill it anyways..do it now and run it parked to find the leak and go from there. (after it has cooled off of course) you dont want to introduce cold tap water to a 190 F engine.

Yes you can fill it an drive it to the auto parts store...(but what happens if it's not a hose or cant be fixed right there drive it again ?)again if it was mine I would not do this either. Car cooling systems require "pressurization" to work as they are designed and if there's a leak well then there's no pressure right.

Some things that can happen are blown head gaskets and cracked heads and of the list just goes on and on, also I do believe your car has a small plastic do hicky in the block, high engine temps can melt it....and I must say what you described to me some of the above could very well already have happened....one things engines don't take well is being baked.

Any time I remove a hose clamp and it's not of the best quality, I replace it with a high quality stainless steel one, but you can almost always reuse the old ones.


What you can do, should do and in the end will do is up to you the car owner.