Help!! Daughters Gen 2 is losing coolant and I don’t know where it’s going.

Throttle body? I may be wrong, but I seem to remember the Gen 2 has a coolant loop at the throttle body for temperature control. I may be remembering incorrectly though. They all kind of blur together.........

 

Well it's a 2005 so it's like 20 years old and all the hoses are the same age sometimes hoses permeate coolant can literally go right through the rubber at a certain age I've seen this on several Toyotas and other cars with like 15 20-year-old hoses every connection you have to check I got a 09 doing this right now and I can almost guarantee you it is leaking down through the head gasket through the head to block connection which is that gasket It's not even enough to rattle or cause any problems yet but the coolant goes down 16 mi maybe a third of a gallon can't see coolant anywhere can have the car running all day up on a rack and get under it not see a thing other than some coolant might be getting pushed out of the overflow hose as it starts to move everything around and do its thing but other than that I see no connections leaking nothing and generally what that means is it's internal

 

How much is leaking?

How fast is it leaking?

Is it leaking while parked or while driving?

 

You might want to safely raise the front of the car to inspect underneath for any coolant residue or other indications of external leakage.

How much coolant loss in how much time or mileage?

Any unusual odors inside the cabin? Leaking heater core is rare but possible - you might find wetness at or under the carpeting in passenger front footwell area.

Head gasket problems are very rare on Gen 2 (really any Toyota except Gen3). Still if I suspect something I get the engine hot. Then pressure test the system overnight (13-15 psi). The next day I pull the spark plugs and look around in the cylinders with a videoscope (amazon has lots of inexpensive ones - even some 90° sideviewers for reasonable price).

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Yeah that's the next question is how much are you adding after the leaking has been noticed and has occurred is the reservoir tank also empty It's pulled all or most of the cooling out of the tank trying to replace what's leaked then when you get home and you whip up the hood all the hoses are hard as basketballs? Is this the case then you let the item cool for a while and then you go out and you uncap slowly letting just air or vacuum escape not coolant sometimes it takes a couple seconds holding the cap down turning it to the first detent and lifting up gently and listing for the wooshing hearing the water coming to the cap and pushing back down waiting a second lifting gently back up once the air is out and you don't lose most of the coolant and you're ready to add out of a gallon jug how much water or coolant are you putting in the vehicle at this time 1/3 of a gallon a 2 l bottle equivalent what My car and a 31 mi round trip of taking my daughter to work on back roads loses a third of the gallon in that drive The heat stops working on the way back because the coolant's down the car never overheats itself but the air bubble that's in the cooling system gets in front of the sensor and tells me with a red triangle and a thermometer on the MFD that I'm overheating but the car is almost dead cold the engine is not even warm to the touch anywhere on the middle I know. And I see no coolant anywhere even when the system is pressurized and the hoses are as tight as basketballs I look up under the car and check every stinking hose and I see nothing nothing coming through long runs of hoses nothing these are all factory original never been touched even the top and bottom radiator hose and they're 20 years old now approximately but no permeation. I do see under the intake where there's a hose clamp and there's a small drip but it is certainly not enough to push out a third of a gallon on a drive this is me looking with the engine running someone sitting in the car and holding it well not all the way down but the decent revs there's nothing coming out externally back side of the motor firewall at the heater hose core connections nothing so I'm expecting to find something going on with the head gasket I haven't bothered to look this is the work vehicle. It now sits a lot and rather than put a head gasket on this particular engine in this car I have two engines sitting at the ready ready to go so it's quicker for me to probably just drop in the other engine and get the timing and everything done up all in one fell swoop.