How to Find your Coolant Leak - Tutorial for Using Coolant Pressure Test Kit

Happy Friday everyone- just sharing here that we had an EXTERNAL coolant leak in our 2013 1.6L SE that was a real pain in the you know what to find...

I went and rented a coolant pressure test kit from the local auto parts store and it really sped things up. If you've never used one before, the real wins are:

• As long as you keep supplying coolant to the reservoir, the engine is off as you pump it through and you can touch everything without burning yourself,
• You don't have to worry about fans or belts going
• You can listen for any hissing, spraying, bubbling, dripping, etc.

I found my leak in 10 minutes with this kit compared to the 5 hr struggle on Wednesdsay night.

Made a tutorial here for anyone who may need a similar diagnosing aid. Unfortunately, if you are CONSUMING coolant internally, that is a whole different beast and could be the dreaded coolant in the cylinder issue.

We found our coolant leak behind the "water outlet" tube located behind the coolant bypass solenoid on our 1.6L. The leak was where the outlet tube butts up against the rear of the engine cylinder head. About to start tackling that this weekend, but wanted to show how to use the kit before I returned it to the store.


Just a heads up- for this kit - it comes with all the adapters the store would ever need. You really just need one.

The one we had from Advance didn't have a great fit for the Escape but it still worked well enough to find the leak. Just needs to seal inside the tank even if the threads are a bit loose depending on the amount of pressure you pump in

NOTE: Max pressure is noted on the cap for your system. Don't exceed that pressure.