My Lumina is slowing bleeding to death

[Whiskey River]

Hi All, as you can see, this is my first post on this board. I have been reading it for quite sometime and have gotten quite a bit of useful info. I do have one question though. My car has started leaking coolant. As far as I can tell, it is coming off the firewall on the passenger side. I have looked inside the car for any leaks or any moist spots but haven't found any. I think it might be a heater core hose but I've never had to replace the core so I'm not sure what side of the car it is on. Any help would be appreicated. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

There is a coolant line that runs along the passenger side wheel well and turns and runs along the firewall to the center of the car. That's where it goes through the firewall and connects to the heater core. Check that hose. It will be rubber hose coming off the top of the water pump, then goes into metal pipe , and turns back into rubber hose right before it connects to the heater core.

[88Intl]

Previous owner replaced mine with standard heater hose. Any potential problems with this fix?

[Anonymous]

Depends where he ran the hose at. Did he run it at the top of the engine bay or down along the bottom where the original ran? If it's running along the bottom look to see if it's laying on the cv boot. Have you got under the car or just looked under?

[Whiskey River]

Thanks for the info. As it turns out, when I really got down and looked at it, my heater core decided to give up the ghost. I really liked the fact that the pan under the heater core has a drain spout that sticks out the firewall. I have had heater cores on other cars go out and not have that feature, nothing like trying to get the coolant smell out of your car after it soaks the floorboard. Thanks again.

[GnatGoSplat]

Thanks for the info. As it turns out, when I really got down and looked at it, my heater core decided to give up the ghost. I really liked the fact that the pan under the heater core has a drain spout that sticks out the firewall. I have had heater cores on other cars go out and not have that feature, nothing like trying to get the coolant smell out of your car after it soaks the floorboard. Thanks again.

Wow, cool! Normally GM doesn't think of little things like that to make our life easier.
Take the placement of the A/C ports for instance. Yikes!

[JPaganel]

On my previous car (Cutlass Calais International) the heater core was set up in the same way. It blew up, but there wasn't a drop inside the car.

[Brian P]

Maybe GM assumes it will break, cause they got the cheapest priced company to produce them? I dunno :)