It only holds 7 or so qts.

 

REALLY???? Holy smokes... No bueno!

Let's see how it does after she gets home this afternoon. Again, thanks for all the great info and help guys. I wonder if she is still covered under warranty to drop this thing off at the dealership? That concerns me, as I didn't see any milk in the oil this morning either?

 

Roughly four quarts low on a system that hold 7.4 quarts in total, yikes!

If you're lucky, the engine didn't get "cooked" enough to do permanent damage, but it bears keeping a close watch on.

 

According to Chevy the 2007 2.4 l with automatic holds 8.5 qt. I don't know if that includes reservoir. Assume 1 pt vanishes. That is only 6%.

Assuming loss is water, concentration increases from nominal 50% to 53%, which could be measured with a refractometer.

I see no problem.

 

For round numbers, assume 2 qt to fill cold engine. If 1 pt goes into reservoir at operating temperature, then engine was only 1.5 qt low. And assuming an 8 qt engine capacity, that suggests engine was 81% full yesterday.

Your observation with pressure cap removed that coolant was flowing in a cold engine should add confidence that there was probably adequate coolant to avoid damage.

 

I just remembered a salient point. When DexCool gets over heated (which over 240F is) it tend to clump up/crystallize and should be renewed. Just a warning if you see clumps of stuff in your coolant.

 

Recently my HHR started being much hotter than usual. It has been two years or so since I had the cooling system even looked at. At that time I had it flushed and new antifreeze put in.

Back when we bought it the previous owners had had it flushed and regular green antifreeze installed when I had it done they put Dexcool back in. I was not aware of that.

When it got so hot I Daned to look at it and saw I had Dexcool in it again and it was lumpy, so and added about a gallon of water. Since I was not at home I took it to a local Chevy garage and they did a system flush and put green antifreeze in it again for me. I checked the color of the coolant to make sure they had done this change for me before I left.

I do not like Dexcool very much. Mainly because it will become lumpy and not do its job very well. I've always used regular glycol based antifreeze in all my cars and have had my problems with leaks and such but the green stuff has never gotten lumpy like Dexcool does for me.

 

????? This thread is about cturboaddict and his 2.2L HHR. Not sure why you want to throw out a bunch of 2.4L capacities and ratios and stuff.

Please stick to the thread topic before you confuse a bunch of people.

 

Well thats interesting stuff to know. I got out of the wrenching business many years ago, this was not covered in my experience.

And fireman, its all good about thread sabotage. Although it does tend to stray away from topic.
Just a confimation for anyone reading thru this and ends up on this page....

THIS TOPIC IS ORIGINALLY ABOUT AN 09 HHR 2.2 Automatic with the flexfuel option.

 

Thats really awkward. With the way the ECM controls the fan to reduce engine temp, I find the tolerance to be substandard for a balance of numbers. Its almost like a setup from the factory.

Oh- your car overheated and instantly flashes the coolant rendering your vehicle useless without a flush then diagnosis.

Anyhow, do you have a suggestion on the inspection for clumpy coolant? I'm going to assume it wont end up in the reserve.....