This engine uses a separate cooling system for its intercooler set-up, rather than simply tapping into the engine’s main cooling system. But the secondary cooling system works just the same as the engine’s coolant system, which means the expansion tank also has an overflow function.

When coolant is heated, it expands. If the system is too full, there’s not enough room for this expansion of the coolant, and the overflow function steps in, allowing some of the coolant to escape to prevent over-pressurising the rest of the system. Once that has happened perhaps a couple of times, the system will then have enough room in the expansion tank to completely contain the coolant, even when it’s hot. This is possibly why you’re seeing some coolant escaping.

However, if the coolant level continues to drop, there’s a good chance you have a leak somewhere in the system. This could be contained within the plumbing that routes the coolant around the engine bay, or even a crack in the expansion tank itself. A workshop should be able to do a pressure test which will determine if there’s a leak and where it is. The leak is also often located on the valve that lets the excess coolant when it needs to (a valve that can commonly fail). This is normally at the top of the expansion tank, but the leak could easily be appearing at the bottom simply by running down the side of the tank.

The coolant reservoir tank on your intercooler system works as an expansion tank, so it will have a high and low mark somewhere on it so you can keep the coolant at the correct level. It should be between the high and low marks when the engine is cold. Too high and coolant will be lost when the intercooler gets hot; too low and you won’t have enough coolant for the intercooler to work efficiently.

Modern engines are pretty coolant-specific these days, so you need to check your owner’s manual to see precisely what coolant is specified for the intercooler. It may be different to the one for the radiator because of the materials the intercooler is made from. That said, in the case of the LDV, I believe the correct coolant for the intercooler is the standard green type and is also used in the car’s engine cooling system.

On the face of it, there’s a lot wrong with the way you’re being treated here. For a start, if the car has already had the software upgrade for the accelerator calibration and it’s still playing up, I’d suggest there’s still something wrong with the throttle-by-wire system in place. So it needs to be looked at. Your car was sold new with a five-year/130,000km warranty, so this is really LDV’s problem to fix provided you’ve had the car serviced correctly and haven’t exceeded that mileage.

As such, the dealership should not be in a position to charge you an hourly rate to fix a warranty issue. As for the old 'they all do that’ nonsense, that’s an example of a dealership treating its customers like idiots. Cars do not die when you take off, regardless of how hard you accelerate, and to suggest that they do is an insult to your intelligence.

So give this dealer the flick and either try another one or – better yet – go straight to the top and contact LDV Australia’s customer service division. Australian Consumer Law is pretty unambiguous on this stuff.