My dad has a 2010 Ford expedition with 90,000 miles the information I was trying to say it loses power going up hills mainly and feels like it's jolting and the car is drinking up the coolant we had it looked at by a trusted mechanic and he couldn't find any leaks in it and neither could we so where would this coolant be going. Also the engine now has a tick to it but oil is all good and the lights that are on are abs traction control and from time to time check engine light pops on this car has had so many problems since we got it I think it's junk day 30 of the warranty air suspension went luckily it was covered bc it was on the last day but if it had been a day later we would have had to pay $1000 for it to get fixed Also when the heat is on in the back it makes a loud clunking noise where the heat comes out from the side in the rear any ideas on what he should do should he trade it in ? He still owes some money on it
Well the big question is, where is the coolant going?
You may just want to do a combustion gas test on the coolant system to rule out a head gasket leak first.
It's easier than hunting down a leak and it is "the deal breaker". The kit only costs around $25. Scotty did a video on performing the test. (real easy), so maybe rule that out first.
If the test checks out OK and you don't have any wet spots under the heater cores then the most likely place for coolant to be escaping without being seen is the radiator seams.
When the seam fails, when under pressure coolant will "weep" from the seam. It's hard to see because between the front of the radiator being covered by the AC condenser and the back of the radiator being covered by a shroud and/or the cooling fans it's easily overlooked.
The seam where the aluminum and plastic part of the radiator joins has these "notches".
You want to look for wet spots in those notches. They can leak just enough where between the heat of the radiator and the fans, the coolant never drips onto the ground.
