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Dear 940 4ever,
Good p.m. and may this find you well. What model year is this car? How many miles on it?
I'll presume you checked the coolant level, and found it actually to be "below normal".
Here are some things to check:
(a) Coolant drain. It is on the passenger side of the engine block (USA/Canada models), towards the rear of the block. It looks like a small tube, about 1/2" diameter and about 3/4" long. It can leak.
(b) Check the end of the oil dipstick and look inside the oil filler cap (atop the engine). Is there a brownish foamy material (sort of like a mousse/froth)? If so, this is a sign of water in the oil, which suggests a headgasket leak, which is allowing coolant to get into the oil;
(c) Check the area around the water pump: the gaskets rarely fail, but it is possible. When was the water pump last changed?
(d) Check the coolant overflow tank, at the bottom, where the hose runs to the radiator. The plastic hose port sometimes cracks
(e) Check the heater control valve, which at the rear of the engine, close to the oil dipstick. These valves definitely fail with age, sometimes catastrophically (i.e., they burst, dumping the coolant). The heater hoses also can split, if not changed in a timely way.
(f) Check the sides of the radiator, especially where the hoses connect to the radiator. 940 radiators have about a 10-year working life. After that, as the plastic gets brittle, you're on "borrowed time". These may leak, or - like the heater control valve - may suddenly fail, and dump the coolant in under a minute.
(g) Check the front carpets (both sides). If they're damp/wet - and there's a small of anti-freeze - that suggests a heater core leak. These are time-consuming to fix.
Please post back with your findings.
Yours faithfully,
spook
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