Polo 9N TDI 1.9 Has 2 different Leaks plus water missing

[Lutvo]

Good Day Everyone

I am new to writing to the forum but I have been an avid follower for some time now, and hopefully in trying to explain my issue I can find some sort of solution to the problem.

Let me start off with the following, I have a 2004 Polo 9N 1.9 TDI (76kw I think), currently the car has 456xxx KM's on the clock, I have had the car since it had 360xxx KM's on it and she has been good to me, I always serviced it when it was time (up until I received it the car was serviced at VW itself till 320xxx KM's. Recently it has been causing me a headache with a few issues.

I took a trip to Namibia in the car about 2 Weeks ago and the total trip was around 4450KM's total. The trip itself was good and the drive was smooth, the issue came when on my first day of arriving my car needed water because the coolant level light came on the dash. I thought it could of been the 1200KM trip there so I just topped it up. But on every day of the 5 days that I was there the car needed a water top up. In the past the coolant level dash light would come on every few weeks or so, and never has it happened everyday.

Trip over, and back in JHB the issue was still occurring, some days the water level is on min, and later the same day it goes to max. I start the car with the level on max, and the dash light comes on and I check and the level will be on low. It is as if some days the water is dissapearing, and others its running away then coming back. There are no leaks anywhere near the bottle, the radiator, water pump(from what I can see) and no water leaks on my garage floor.

Today I opened my Fuse distributor ontop of the battery and the fuse strip for F5 which is the Engine coolant blower motor was broken so I ordered a new one from VW today. Could this fuse being broken cause my fan not to kick in when the car is getting hot and thus being the issue to my water?

On another note I have 2 different leaks under my car, the first one being an orange oil coloured liquid which I suspect to be transmission fluid from the Drive shaft oil seal as it looked to be sweating when I was under the car doing an oil change a week before going to Namibia. My concern with this one is I am worried I drive the car without gearbox oil in it and I end up breaking something big. Is that a possibility?

The second leak under the car is good old diesel engine oil, from what I can see its coming from the back of the engine somewhere, the only place I see the oil collect is by the bolts under the sump but the drips are coming from further up. I am hoping it is not the head leaking? Any way I can find out exactly where the leak is coming from.

I need to add that the past week the car has been feeling a little weak, the boost does not feel as strong, the engine idles a little rough and it never used to, and theres a small noise you can hear from the exhaust when it idles, the noise can be described as a duh duh duh duh duh duh like the air has bumps in it when it comes out the exhaust.

I am hoping it is not the injectors as I just saw that what a new set would cost when searching the forum a bit.

Things to add are there is no blue, white or black smoke. The oil level is okay and the colour is pure black no dirty colour.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Lutvo

[BIGMIG]

Second leak is most likely a combination of tappet cover gasket and most definitely loom plug gasket. With that amount of age they have definitely left the building. Tappet cover gasket is a bit of a crap one as in order to buy just the OEM gasket you would have to buy the complete tappet cover. Don’t ask me why vw don’t sell them separate even thou they do have their own part numbers. Morne pieters on the forum was able to buy juts the gasket but I still have no clue as to how he did this. You could also buy a non oem but I think the rubber won’t be up to the task of sealing. The injector loom would also have to be bought as complete as the seal comes with the loom and as far as I am aware they are one unit. Again with that amount of mileage it wouldn’t hurt to fit a new loom plus if the tappet cover is off then this is the only way to replace the loom. If you do but a new loom or you can try sort out your old one is the remove it and clean all the oil out of the hole and on the gasket the apply a very little bit of gasket maker on the area where the gasket will touch the head.