Hi, I'm from the UK and I would like to add my experiences of lost coolant to your site (if it's still live and is kept updated) Feel free to edit the story, I'm waffling a bit here... I have a 93 Vento VR6 and one day the coolant light on the dashboard started flashing. Checking under the bonet revealed no coolant in the expansion tank. I could see it had been lost through the square vent in the side of the tank. My first reaction was "head gasket" and £ouch£. I was losing about a pint of water per hour driving. All temp gauges were normal. I changed the expansion tank cap, but this made no difference. I took the car to a VW specialist who I've been using for many years. They did a chemical test on the coolant. Aparently this checks the coolant for chemicals that are produced in the combustion chamber and hence checks to see if combustion gasses are getting into the cooling system and over pressurising the system. The test came back about 95% negative. They flushed the system, ran the car for an hour and had no luck with getting it to leak. I left with them scratching their heads and me worried that I was facing a £1200 bill. After the trip home I'd lost 2 pints of coolant. After some phoning around for head gasket replacement I had quotes ranging from £400-£1200, depending on if the head needed skimming etc. One specialist I called said it didn't make sense that I was losing so much coolant when the chemical test was almost negative. He advised me to change the expansion tank. This really was a last ditch attempt before shelling out big money, BUT IT WORKED. I changed the expansion cap again and the expansion tank. It only took 10 minutes with some "mole-grips" and the leak has gone 100%. Total cost £35. Do try this if your have similar problems. I didn't think it would work because there is nothing to go wrong with the tank, it's just a lump of plastic with no moving parts. But it worked. I've driven the car for a couple of hours now and no loss of coolant. To say I'm relieved is an under-statement. Thanks to your pages I was able to get some insite into other peoples problems and was able to ask sensible questions to the specialists I spoke to. I've saved £hundreds through a bit of surfing and ringing around. thanks Tony. ** PS-pls suppress my e-mail address if you post this on your site. ** Cheers again, Tony. -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Faster than the air-speed velocity of an unladen european swallow