Is there any way I can drive my car before I get the new tank? The nipple broke off to the hose on the left side (towards passenger side). The hose appears to go to the top of the engine near the fuel injectors. What if I taped the end of the hose off and taped the hole in the tank off and filled it with coolant? Would it at least be driveable for a couple days?

 

04xtype04, to make the car driveable, you would need to seal things up. Your car runs truely on a pressurized system setup. As the car warms up, the tank gets pressurized (hence why they tell you not to open it with it hot as the water can flash to steam with the loss of pressure and burn you). So, you would have to plug the hose that broke off (I recommend sticking a bolt in the end and then clamping down on that) and then screwing another bolt into the open hole and sealing that back up. The purpose of the line that broke off is to provide a high point vent in the engine so any trapped air can get out. As long as you still have a level in the reservoir, you shouldn't have a bubble in the engine.

 

The resevoir is empty I believe

 

I understand you want to drive the car and how much it sucks to not have transportation, but this is one time when it's best to take your lumps and wait until you get the new tank. Why take the chance? You overheat it and you could be down for a lot more than a couple days. Hang in there!

 

Yea, I agree. The tank should be here in a couple days. I can rough it til then, install the tank and put in fresh coolant and be good... Hate to risk frying a 4 or $5000 engine if the coolant leaked out because I was impatient.

 

Should I do a flush and fill or just add a gallon of premixed coolant?

 

Unless the coolant needed to be changed anyway, just replace the tank, fill it up and call it good.