My truck smells like coolant after driving (coolant level is very low also) and my gas mileage has dropped a noticeable about (i used to get about 300 miles out of 3/4s of a tank.. now I’m getting 250 at the most)

I blew my throttle body heater a little while ago. I've bypassed it until I have the time to replace it (very soon hopefully). I blamed the coolant smell on that for a while (as it blew coolant all over my engine) but it’s really bothering me that it’s still around.

Any ideas? I'm trying not to drive her in case there is a major problem. Thanks in advance!

-Nick

 

Do you have a puddle of coolant on top of the intake manifold? I know when I took my throttle body heater hoses off, they dumped a bunch of coolant all over the place and some pooled up in there and it took me about a half hour to soak it out of there. Hopefully it's something simple like that. That doesn't explain the gas milage but, take a good look around with a flashlight under the plenum chamber and see what you find.

-Good Luck

 

did you check your oil for contamination? are you throwing any CEL codes?

 

Hope you are not waiting for an answer and still driving it.
What have you done so far, what do you think needs to be checked to find the problem?

 

I stopped driving it. I am not throwing any codes that I know of. My check engine light is off.

I will check the oil right away.

another thing I should throw out is that I just put new tires on. I've been told that that may be contributing to the drop in my mpgs.

thanks!
Nick

 

Your main concern is your coolant leak, if you don't know how to find and fix it, then you need to get it to a shop ASAP. By the way, your coolant leak has nothing to do with your gas mileage. When did the gas mileage start falling off, could be the tires, but not by more then 1/2 GPM, what air pressure are you running in the new tires and what size are they, when was the engine last tuned and what octane are you using?
One thing to remember is all the state switched to their winter mix of gas which always drops your mileage.
Before you go much further, your way of determine gas mileages is about as accurate as guessing, start actually tracking the next 2 tank fulls.