My TJ is using water 1/2 litre per small trip
Temp gauge always at 1/2 way only ever once in 12mths has it been higher briefly one day but car always smells hot when stopped ??

Carried out the following
Checked for leaks NONE
Checked Water Pump area No Water and seemed firm (No movement, but hard to tell with belt on)
Oil is fine no sludge
No Bubbles in water with cap off
No oil in water
Over flow level no change (Unless it flows out)
Fans not working when at idle but on when Air on, not sure how to see if this is the issue but noiw would this use water

Would faulty Thermo stat cause water loss ??

Am at a real loss what to do next

Have you checked the exhaust for coolant?

Busted thermo won't cause direct loss, what it will do is either:

1. Stay open and the car will take much longer to warm up, temp guage most likely will sit lower
2. Stay closed, boil over and overheat (this happened to me, coolant smells like dead fish :P) If you do not fix a jammed thermo you are risking a blown head gasket and some serious damage

As In water or moisture at exhaust pipe..

I do have a hole in a muffler that is getting repaired soon and there is a occasional smell in the car which we blamed our son for leaving his football socks but could not find

check inside,
You may have the beginning of a heater core "O" ring seal leak.
Gerry

yes heater core possibly. check the passenger footwell in the front for damp carpet.

spud100 is on the money I think..

Metal Pipe goes under the throttle body to the heater core.. Check the O-ring on that.

SuFz :ninja:

Dont overlook the radiator cap itself, it may seem fine to look at but if it doesn't hold the pressure properly it will let water escape when the pressure builds.

Dont overlook the radiator cap itself
Forgotto Mention first thing i did was change the Cap
Just checked Carpets Dry

Wondering if there is a Color Dye that could be used in the water in case it is steaming out some where

Forgotto Mention first thing i did was change the Cap
Just checked Carpets Dry

Wondering if there is a Color Dye that could be used in the water in case it is steaming out some where

Well, you should not actually be using water, you should be using coolant, which is naturally green or red... Otherwise you'll end up with a murkey brown coloured cooling liquid made up of rust and water... You would also have issues with water if you ever went to the snow, your cooling system would freeze solid and do some major damage.

I think you are all looking at this wrong. He is loosing 1/2 litre on a small trip. To me a small trip is about 100kms so 1/2 litre is a fair bit of water.

I just spent a year going through the with my Pajero. It was using about 1-2 litres in summer per tank of fuel.

There is only 3 ways this could be happening. Its leaking(engine bay or cabin), its dumping it out the over flow pipe on the bottle when you are driving or its going through the engine which you dont see any evidence of water leaking.

My question is how long is a small trip and how long has this been going on for. Start with the simple stuff first. Id be changing your thermostat for now and getting the fans checked to make sure they are working as they are ment too. If they are faulty the car can be dumping water out the overflow while you are driving when it warms up and you wouldnt know. if these two are fine i would be putting a bottle under the over flow pipe to catch any water that its dumping while driving. I did this it took 20sec to set up. Just got me an empty poweraid bottle and cable tied it to the side of the overflow bottle then stick the overflow pipe in it. You now can check that after every drive to see if there is any water in it. Oh i wouldnt be using any more coolant at this stage as it may send you broke with the amount you are loosing. Done listen to life as there is a sfa chance you are going to the snow this time of the year.

So if there is no evidence of it leaking(1/2 litre a trip will leave a puddle) and there is no water in that poweraid bottle there is only one other option. its going out thought the cylinders in the engine. In this case you really have two options. lts leaving via a crack in the block/head or a crack in the head gasket. id more than likely say a crack in the head gasket and its droppping small amounts of water into a cylinder/cylinders and its burning off and therefore you will never see any water on the ground leaking. if you say your exhaust is got a hole in it there is a good chance of this as moisture wouldnt do any good to the exhaust system.

I spent over a year trying to find out where my water was going and we put it down to going through he engine as there was never any water around. Car would always smell hot too when i got out. I replaced water pump and radiator in that time as they where leaking and thought at that stage it was fixed but the loss was still there. I dropped a bottle of "seal it" into the coolant and hasnt lost a drop of water in the last 2 months. Its only a temp fix but it has stopped it for now. If you use that seal it stuff read and understand the instructions very well or you could stuff the car.

Good luck.

Re My question is how long is a small trip and how long has this been going on for.
Small trip would be 20-40ks approx and it has just stated to be noticable for the last three four weeks, before that i would top up "Coolant" water once a month with 1/4 litre is that so it has been there.

Update: Just took the cap off and while writing this looked out at the car and there is water dripping ...

I can not pin point extactly the spot or hose that it is coming from.
My Magna is a factory LPG and the water seems to be sitting right under the LPG unit on the Body part that is a shelve or flat bit.

For the life of me i can not see where it is coming from it is just there ??

I will see if the manual can explain what hoses are vacuum and what are water

ps where it is dripping on the ground is normally where the Air Con would drop water and i had checked for this b efore by not running the air but had not taken off the radiator cap like i just have. It only leaked when i released the cap

Found Leak: The LPG Convertor... Coolant is leaking from this unit and will need a overhaul or replacement , just rung around quicker and same price for new ubit all up should be about $450 ouch !

Ok/
LPG, could be a fault in the converter

Also, if you are using that much, the only thing you can do is pressure test the system.

Even if you can see the coolant, finding from where can be hard. A cap, if it is faulty, even if it does push the coolant out, it will suck back in when cools down

So in short, you need to pressure test the system and track from there. The amout you are losing will show up a fairly obvious leak I would think

EGO, your issue mate is most likely a common second gen issue, they crack in the exhuast ports thus allowing coolant to flow into the ports but not into the engine. You get no milking, bubbles or anything aside from coolant loss. I had this in my KR and used the ABRO crystals and fixed it perm

Ok/
EGO, your issue mate is most likely a common second gen issue, they crack in the exhuast ports thus allowing coolant to flow into the ports but not into the engine. You get no milking, bubbles or anything aside from coolant loss. I had this in my KR and used the ABRO crystals and fixed it perm

Seems to have done the trick so far. I changed the plugs last nite and they all looked the same so id say you would be close to spot on. Ive been told that if there is water is a Cylinder you will see it on a plug.

Ive also found out today my front AC/Thermo fan isnt working. Only took 40 degree heat to work it out. Looking back on it now id say it hasnt work for about 1-2years. Got a replacment today so thats a job for the morning before the big trip on Monday..