While most people don’t know why their car is leaking, it’s a pretty general understanding that leaks are never a good thing. At Kearny Mesa Auto Repair, we work with different types of cars each and every day, and we meet plenty of people that are unsure what it is that is leaking from their car. Rather than run tests on every part of your car that requires some sort of fluid, we have broken down the different fluids that are most likely to be leaking from your car. That way, when you come into visit our automotive repair shop, you can at least provide us with a centralized area of where to start looking for problems.

Below are some of the fluids that we have to work with, if the fluid that you’re noticing isn’t shown below, then bring your car into our local repair shop and we’ll do our best to solve the mystery.

Antifreeze & Coolant

This is one of the most common leaks found on cars and can usually be identified by the greenish color that it has. While green is the most frequently found color of antifreeze, it can also be found in orange and pink forms. If you touch the leaked liquid, it will have a sticky feel to it. While this leak isn’t especially serious for your vehicle, it can be very important to fix for the safety of others.

Oil

We’ve talked about how important it is to get your oil changed, and having done that, we hope that you realize that it’s just as important to handle any oil leaks that you may notice. The best way to determine whether or not your car is leaking is oil is to check and see where the leak is puddling. If there is a puddle under your car, there’s a strong chance it could be oil. Any new oil leak would have a yellowish brown color while older oil will be dark brown or black.

If the oil that you’ve found leaking from your car isn’t one of the above, then you’re in luck, because our next blog post will cover some of the other types of fluid that commonly leak from vehicles. Make sure to stay in check with our blog so that you can narrow down the issues that your car is having, and as always, make sure to schedule your automotive repair with your local repair shop!