Hi. I check my oil and coolant levels about every 3 weeks or so. In the summer I had new coolant hoses and some airlock issues, which I thought were resolved.
This week, I noticed a fume like smell a couple of times on longer journeys, which I put down to being behind diesels. It also took a couple of turns more to start one morning, which I put down to powerwashing the night before. . Two days ago, when hot, I could hear gurgling at idle, in the lower dash, so immediately checked the expansion tank, which was empty. The engine was tinkling as it cooled, so hot. Rad and top tank had coolant.
Yesterday, I rechecked when cold, expansion down a fraction, BUT, oil hardly on bottom of dipstick. No sign of oil/water contamination. Needed at least 1 litre of oil. Checked oil when warm, and may have overfilled a bit. Drives well, sounds fine to my ear.
Stage 1 05 wrx wagon. Opinions appreciated ??

 

Tinkling is normal when cooling. how long/many miles did it take to go through the litre if oil?

 

Sounds to me like you still have air locks in there if it's bubbling through the heater matrix. They can be a bit tricky to shift, was it re-filled slowly through the turbo water pipe? Rad and header tank caps off till rad is full, then cap on and fill till it goes into the header tank, then engine on and heaters on full bore with the cap still off?

 

Tidgy; probably not more than 1000.
Ditch; I just took header cap off, running, with heater on, and topped up , after it had been done at garage. Should I top up with coolant, rather than the hard water here?

 

I'm guessing it wasn't done by a Subaru specialist. Sounds like it's air locked and wants doing over Properly through the turbo water hose that's on the header tank.

 

As above, drain and refill with 50% anti-freeze, 50% water. Don't worry abt hard water, it's enclosed so the samll amount of limescale deposited is of no consequence.

DO search on here and refill as above. DO NOT believe anyone that says you can bleed the Scoob coolant system, you can if you are lucky, most times you won't. Just refill correctly.

Hope it's OK for you.

 

Have you checked on of the hoses hasn't got a split? This could be the cause of the smell.

Any evidence of steam through the scoop?

Had similar issues recently.

https://www.scoobynet.com/scoobynet-...ting-help.html

 

Loss of oil could also be rocker cover gasket leaking. It burns the oil off on the headers and is also responsible for a smell.

 

Thanks. I`ll keep an eye on levels for a couple of days, and then drop the coolant out and redo. I check all fluids at least every 4 weeks, and it has never used much oil, except last year on a 2000 odd mile roadtrip to the Alps. Why would intermittent oil usage occur? Would it happen only when the motor is well used ? No steam or visible leaks; one rocker gasket was done last year. Engine rocks at idle a bit.