How to Know if Your Car Has a Fluid Leak

Video Transcript

"Dave Erb here from Dave's Ultimate Automotive. We are going to be talking about how to tell if your car has a fluid leak. I get complaints all the time when people see drips and drops on the ground and they want to know if they have a fluid leak. Well if you see something on the ground and it's looks like a fluid, you very likely have a fluid leak. The hard part is discerning what fluid that is, where it came from and what you should do about it. And don't, you know some people actually misdiagnose a fluid leak as just condensation, just natural condensation from the AC being more then it usually is because of humid day or that drain gets clogged and they see some fluid on their floorboard of their car, because that condensation will back up, you know being clogged which allows that fluid to back up an then go into the floorboard. So to discern if you have a fluid leak or not, first I'd would say to check your fluids on a regular basis and see if anyone of them is getting low. Another word if you see something on the ground and it dissipates or goes away, and you are not sure exactly what's leaking you check that system such as the cooling system, or the transmission fluid or any number of systems that have fluid in it, oil, power steering, washer whatever and also if you keep having to add fluid to it, that's more then likely where your fluid leak is coming from. Also color, it can tell you more about where it comes from, green being coolant, and red possibly being coolant, red and oily being transmission fluid, power steering fluid is kind of tan or brown. Sometimes the washer fluid a lot of times is blue, because the concentrate of the mix is blue so. You know pay attention to what color it is, what part of the car it comes from, and don't be worried about you know, liquids that are clear and dry up are probably condensation from the AC. Sometimes on a real humid day you'll get even stuff dripping out of your exhaust, it will be sooty and dark and you'll see that on the ground, and be worried that you have a leak. So pay attention where it comes from, what color it is, how frequent it is, and if you need any fluids is getting low and you have to top them off, that's how you tell if you have a fluid leak or not."