Do I have a leak with my coolant or is it something else? Need help please.

I need some help triaging what might be a leak. The car is an 04 40th anniversary 911. I was under my car examining the inside tread on the tires and noticed something of concern on the left side (US drivers side) of my engine. Just towards the rear of the headers and slightly down are 2 hoses. The one in front is about 3 inches in diameter and the other one behind it seems to be about 1.5 inches in diameter. At the lower part of the 3 inch hose right where it is clamped to a metal fitting is some white/orange colored crusting kind of like what one either gets around a battery terminal or with crusting antifreeze. I need to know what this hose is and/or what this crusting material comes from in order to figure out my next steps. I�ve attached a couple of pictures that include a distance photo for orientation and a closer photo to take a closer look. Are Porsches factory crimp clamps able to hold up to hard use very well? Do they get weak over time and are commonly replaced by worm screw type of hose clamps? I�d appreciate any ideas or next steps. Best regards, Marc

Try cleaning off the area very well and see if it comes back. It may be that there was, or is a slight leak at the connection point. The dealer should repair it if it is still leaking. The stock clamp should be fine, but I have found that if you remove it just once, you are better off replacing it with a screw type clamp.

Marc: I was just browsing and found your posting. Not sure if you already took care of this. But I had a similar issue on my 40th as well about 2 months ago at 2200 mi then. I would get tiny puddles of coolant on the ground. The clamp was loose where the hose attaches to the water pump. The dealer took care of it. I like 1999Porsche911's suggestion.

I e-mailed the dealer with the pics and they agreed that it was coolant. They said to bring the car in to have the clamp replaced. At least after last weekend doesn't seem to have progressed. At least in the BMW E36M3 world, some of these types of clamps are known weak links in cars that see aggressive conditions (tracking in central valley temps here in CA). Do I have to worry that Porsche's OE clamps aren't up to the stresses of aggressive driving and need to be replaced with good worm gear clamps? Regards, Marc 40th 911 95M3

The reason for the spring-style clamp is that it will maintain a consistant amount of pressure to the hose as the engine heats up. The wormgear stlye clamp puts a load on the hose and while the aluminum t-stat cover expands, the pressure on the hose at the point of contact increases and could cut the hose. FWIW, they use both stlye on the engine's at various places, so I'm not sure what differance it makes.....

Hey Marc: well this morning I took the car to the dealer for a quick check on the same hose clamp as in your pics, after I noticed some coolant spots on the ground. They replaced the said clamp with a wormgear style clamp. And you may already know this, but ask your dealer about what to do for topping off the coolant reservoir. The service tech advised me to use only the Porsche approved/branded coolant (which thus far I can only find at the dealership), not the commercially available (in the US) products (like Prestone and such). In an emergency just use plain water.

I've always wondered the validity of "PORSCHE ONLY" coolant. Does anyone here have the insight as to what's so special about their propriatory mix? I owned an Audi for a bit, and they too insisted on using "AUDI ONLY" coolant..

The Audi pink stuff. http://www.renntech.org/forums/index...&st=0&p=18113&

I had this too--I've seen and assumed it was coolant since oil doesnt crust up like that--I'll try to put a wormgear clamp myself and go from there. Ive been meaning to ask this same question-- Thanks guys Mike

Well Folks I've got an update on my car's leak, and Chris Prack was right on his posting. The wormgear style clamp didn't do its job since the coolant leak continued, I asked them to replace it with the stock spring-style clamp and that fixed the problem. Initially the wormgear style clamp was tightened while the engine was still hot/warm, thus when the engine cools down the pipe into the water pump contracts allowing coolant to leak. And as Chris pointed out it is easy to see how the wormgear clamp could cut the hose with all this expansion and contraction.

That's because they make more money from you. Any of the premium brand long-life coolants (the orange or red stuff) is fine. Just don't use a short-life coolant (the green stuff).

Thanks Teflon!