Q: Car smoking under hood and spraying antifreeze everywhere, but not overheating
I have a question regarding my 2004 automatic Honda Civic. It was overheating so I brought it to a mechanic. He concluded the fan on the radiator was broke and had to be replaced which is why the car was overheating. He fixed it and I got it back. Since I got it back, there is a lot of white smoke coming out from under the hood now and antifreeze spraying EVERYWHERE out the front grille of my car and even spraying onto my windshield every time while I'm driving -- but the temperature gauge doesn't show it is overheating. My mechanic said it was normal to do that for a couple days because he had to bleed out the system to replace the fan. It's been a week and it's still smoking and spraying antifreeze. Could he have damaged something while replacing the radiator fan and what could it be?
My car has 230000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
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Hi, thanks for writing in. Either the bleeder screw was not properly tightened, or the bleeder screw (or worse yet possibly) the radiator is damaged and has begun leaking, and the fan is spraying the hot and high pressure coolant all over. Don’t take any comfort that the temperature gauge is not showing an overheating condition. If there is air in the cooling system, or the coolant has already boiled away from the sensor, it will NOT read accurately. You may have an overheating condition that is doing damage already. If you would like help, consider having an expert automotive technician from YourMechanic come to your home or office to inspect and diagnose this issue for you, and make or suggest any repairs as needed.
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