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Hi - I drive a 1999 9-5 with 130k miles. I took it on a 4 day 800 mile road trip from denver to durango to visit my son in college. If you are familar with the route or CO - you cross numerous mountain passes, so day 1 the car ran great and on the SID said 34.2 mpg. Day 2 took a ride up 550 up Coal Bank and Molas pass, outside temp was in the 70s, 3 people in the car, pushing it pretty hard up the passes - going by slower moving vehicles. When I stopped at a traihead to park - wife noticed some steam and coolant smell - opened the hood and overflow tank was near to top - with steam coming out, temp guage had creeped up a notch from mid way, but a ways from the red. Came back later from climbing engineer peak - coolant had dropped in the tank to less than halfway. Turns out overflow tank cap was on tight but not tight enough as pressure and some coolant had escaped. added maybe 12 ounces of water and all was well the rest of the trip, but stopped at the top of a 11k ft pass on the way home and noticed the cooling fan ran for 10 minutes before shutting down.
Long post - but is this possibly a sign that it's time to flush the cooling system or that the engine is begining to run hot ? If I ever had a pressure leak or defective cap the car would have overheated big time. Just wondering if the coolant system is that dependent on pressurization to lower the boiling point or if this is a sign of a tiring old engine.
When I completed the trip SID said 33.5 mpg - not bad for crossing maybe 10 mtn passes and running at over 60 mph for overall avg speed. Run 91 octane and burn typically 1 quart of oil between 6k changes.
thanks
posted by 98.245.24...
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