My 2002 discovery SE with 90,000 miles has been overheating because i am losing coolant. I had the head gaskets and the passenger side cylinder head replaced within the last 1,500 miles because of this. I am wondering where the coolant is going and also whether or not I should give the shop I've been taking it to another chance. I'm thinking about cancelling the payment on my credit card because they totally did not fix the problem and this will be the 4th time bringing it back to them since the first job. Would I be losing coolant like this if my thermostat was bad? My heater has not worked since I started having this problem. Any help appreciated!!

 

Your cooling system might not be bled properly - that's maybe why your heater is not working.
If there is air in the system it won't be cooling properly either.
Helps to park it up an incline when bleeding. There is a sticky here for instructions on bleeding the cooling system.

They can check for contaminants in your coolant and oil which should point to a gasket issue. CO2 in the coolant - easy and they shouldn't charge for it considering what they have got you for already.

My Tstat was jammed closed - it would go 20 minutes and then boil over. I had mechanics and cooling specialists giving me all sorts of crazy numbers to fix it. I should have noticed they were salivating at the time. I took it out and it goes fine now - i'll be putting a new one in soon.

You can't see any leaks?

Others will probably give better advice but that will get you started.
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You can send your oil off to Blackstone Labs for $25 dollars and get it analyzed for trace amounts of coolant. Also go to Napa and get a little bottle of coolant dye and put that in your expansion tank. This will allow you to see small leaks (make sure your engine is clean so you can see the dried dye). If the head gaskets are not leaking (pull your front and rear cylinder plugs and look for coolant in the morning) then other usual suspects are the valley pan gasket, water pump/gasket, front cover gasket. The front cover gasket is a common one. It seems to leak near the top then run down the front of the engine and look like you have a leak from the front corner of your oil pan.

 

If you have a leak, take it straight back to that shop before you toast the engine. They should warranty their work, if not go to your credit card company.

 

Probably a bad heater core. The same thing has happened with mine, it kept drinking cooliant and my heater doesn't work, the cooliant was apparently gathering in the core, I had the front end lifted up and all this fluid ran into the passenger floor board carpet.

$1100

 

That makes no sense at all, the heater core is always full of coolant.

Arizona Man, just take it back to the shop and have it pressure tested.

 

I just found a very slow leak in my radiator. I had a devil of a time finding it. It only lets out a few drops at a time so the coolant leaves over a period of weeks. It leaks at the seal where the plastic tank is secured to the core. Now I either buy one of these:
http://www.roverparts.com/Parts/PCC000650.cfm
or get mine rebuilt.

 

Get a new one, your's is too old has to many miles on it and all the plastic is brittle.

 

Well, it turns out that my thermostat was bad. The previous shop supposedly replaced it a few months ago so that seems a little fishy to me. I still need to figure out where the coolant is going though. I'm going to have the system pressure tested soon and I'll post the results.

 

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The coolant was probably going out through the cap in the expansion tank. Too much pressure and the relief valve in the cap goes. You might find that the "leak" dissappears once the Tstat is fixed.

good to see the probelm is solved!
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