Daihatsu Reviews

It seems pretty clear from these symptoms that the engine is massively overheating. That explains the boiling water in the overflow tank which will be dirty mainly form rusty deposits within the engine’s cooling system. The question then becomes what’s causing the overheating.

There are lots of reasons for an engine to overheat, including low coolant level, a blocked radiator, collapsed radiator hose, failed head gasket, incorrect ignition timing, poor fuel mixture, a damaged or missing fan shroud, slipping fan belt, worn water pump and many, many more. But a good mechanic should be able to assess the situation, do a few quick tests and determine the root cause of the overheating, then you can move forward on a fix, knowing that you’re tackling the correct issue.

The other piece of advice is to not drive the car until it’s fixed. Continuing to drive with an overheating engine is a great way to destroy the engine completely. At that point you need a new engine or a new car.

If the engine mounts are indeed in good condition (and it can be hard to tell just by looking) then you might be looking at a problem with the idle speed settings. Engines typically idle more slowly when they’re cold and in gear and there’s usually a compensation for this. In an electronically controlled engine like the Sirion’s, this idle-up function will be a job for the onboard computer. But if the computer has lost the plot or isn’t getting the right signal from, say, a temperature sensor, then it can’t bump the idle up a fraction when it needs to. And then, once warmed up, the engine seems normal.

A cold engine that spits a little water out the tailpipe is completely normal. Water is one of the by-products of the combustion process. It’s black because it mixes with soot in the exhaust system. But we only see it when the engine is cold, as once warmed up, the exhaust system turns the water to steam and we don’t see it. A black exhaust in a modern car that runs on ULP is completely normal also.

There’s not really any such thing as a close fit when it comes to a windscreen; it will either fit and seal, or it won’t and will leak. And these pieces of glass tend to be very different from one make and model to the next with very limited interchangeability. Sometimes, you might get two models within a line-up that share a windscreen, but since the Pyzar was based on the much smaller Charade hatchback, that’s not going to be the case here.

Despite that, I did manage to find at least one online business that claimed to be able to supply the correct windscreen. If that doesn’t work out locally, I believe the Pyzar was a pretty popular model in New Zealand, so perhaps a search of suppliers across the ditch might pay-off. Yes, you’ll have to pay for shipping, but a car with no windscreen is pretty much useless until that crucial piece of glass has been replaced.