HELP! Coolant is rusty brown only 30K!

[TheSilkySmooth]

No water in oil seen as yet. The Idle is unstable in the morning though after a cold start. No smoke seen yet or coolant smell.

[YarisSedan]

Originally Posted by TheSilkySmooth

No water in oil seen as yet. The Idle is unstable in the morning though after a cold start. No smoke seen yet or coolant smell.

Typically rough idle in the morning until the vehicle is warmed up is a tell tale sign of very minor head gasket leakage. As the vehicle sits overnight coolant starts to seep into the cylinders causing the car to run rough like its missfiring for a little while till its warmed up and then it goes away and is fine the rest of the day till the next morning. It can be very minute that you dont have any real major loss of coolant or smoke coming from the tail pipe.

One really easy way to tell for sure is take your vehicle to any smog shop. Remove the radiator cap and have them put the "sniffer" close to the coolant and check for HCs you should read barely anything. If your reading somthing like 100 then you know for sure its starting signs of headgasket failure.

I dont like how our temperature gauges are digital. There is no analog gauge to show if your car is overheating until its on the verge and too late. A car running hotter than usual but not not severely overheating thats driven that way for a very long time can still cause warpage to the head to cause minor headgasket leaking.

[talnlnky]

Originally Posted by YarisSedan

I dont like how our temperature gauges are digital. There is no analog gauge to show if your car is overheating until its on the verge and too late. A car running hotter than usual but not not severely overheating thats driven that way for a very long time can still cause warpage to the head to cause minor headgasket leaking.

Scanguage does.... I've yet to get mine over 200F. in the summers mid 90's is usually as high as I can get it. Not that I try to get it to run hot.