steam...oh no!!!

[DazVR6]

parked the car up this afternoon, about ten minutes late my sister inlaw called me and said the car had caught fire,went out to see clouds of white smoke(steam) coming from under the bonnet :sad:i let it cool down, came back to find that all the coolent had either boiled off or ended up on the floor.
Poured some water through the system to find out if there was a leak and noticed it coming from the join of one of the coolent pipes...the pipe is located just to the right of the dipstick (its a 16v ) any suggestions? it looks difficult to get to! anything else i should check? i.e would it have damaged anything else?

[rubjonny]

Get another from VW, wont cost you much.  You might have to take the inlet manifold off to get to it, if so order the 2 gaskets while you're there

Was the engine still running at the time?

[Len]

So the steam was still coming out 10 minutes later!

Difficult to say but if there was a lot of water on the ground then I'd say you just need to fix the leak and fill up with coolant!
All else should be fine. Just keep an eye on the water level in the expansion tank.

[DazVR6]

The pipe seems to enter under the inlet manifold and it seems to be leaking at the joint to the block, the engine wasnt running when this happened...also im a bit worried as when i pour water through the system it seems to be slightly brown and when you look at it on the floor it has that rainbowey effect,like what spilt petrol or diesel does..
head gasket was done 7.000miles ago when engine was rebuilt, also theres no mayo under oil cap or on the dipstick. Hope its nothing serious..got it towes to the garage this evening, they will look at it in the morning

[rubjonny]

Sounds like the oil cooler has gone as well!  Common fault on higher milage engines

[DazVR6]

leak was fixed by the garage....but it wasnt that easy car would start then die after about ten seconds,they stuck it on the diagnostics and it came up with a crank sensor fault....apparently damaged by the water as it was directly under the leak...anyone no roughly how much the crank sensor is? this car is slowly but shorly emptying my bank account

[rubjonny]

£128+VAT from VW, I'd look at pinching one from the scrappy!  I'm sure I saw cheap ones on ebay a while back, worth looking into!