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My 2013 Kia Rio has been faultless since i bought it new in 2013 , but noticed last week its losing water from the expansion tank and no sign as to where its leaking ? .. checked oil etc , not milky so not head gasket etc hopefully ?Anyway i reported what sounded like a blowing exhaust at last service , nothing was found , this blowing /whooshing sound has slowly got worse and then today i notice what i thought was a wet patch by the intercooler .did think it was a water leak, but when i cleaned it up , its more oil based,drove it home tonite and you can see where the leak has been spitting under the cooler.
So i guess the question is can you lose water through a intercooler and im also guessing the whooshing sound is the split pipe losing turbo pressure and spitting oil ??
maybe totally wrong, gonna get it booked in as soon as i can
Wooshing and blowing could be easily a burst pipe on the induction side.
Should be no water there though
should also be minimal oil.
Would expect smoking and it to go into limp mode it you had burst pipe work how ever its a kia so anythings possible .
With turbo diesels it’s not that unusual to get oil in the intercooler. Both my golf and defender do.
But not so sure about your water loss.
Is there any staining on the outside of the expansion tank from coolant getting pushed out , over pressurising.
If the turbo is worn, oil can enter the intake from the turbo bearings and accumulate in the intercooler. A leak in the intercooler could be the cause of your wooshing noise and any oil could leak out with the air.
The oil cooler (if fitted) is another failure point where water and oil meet.
With head gasket failure, you can either get water in the oil (mayo), or it can fail the other way and you get oil or combustion gases into the water jacket/expansion tank which causes it to pressurise more than normal and push out water. You can use a tester to easily see if these gases have accumulated in the coolant.
Edit: re-read your post..is the intercooler stacked on top of the radiator? More likely that the water loss is bubbling out of the radiator and the wooshing sound is something/where else on the intake side.