[27litres]

I tolerated a slight coolant loss through the pressure cap for close to three years after replacing my radiator, coolant bottle, coolant cap, and bleed valves.
The car never overheated, but would give low coolant warning on spirited left hand bends on occasion and I would then top it up with some G12+ (I would usually find it sitting on "min" at operating temp).

I simply blamed the aftermarket coolant bottle and lid and put up with it.
However, come timing belt time, and I drained the coolant out of the system and refilled it after installing a new pump and thermostat.
It has not needed coolant since, and sits rock steady on the max mark at running temp.

So the moral of this story is that a small amount of air in the system that can push out coolant (probably by expanding more than the coolant does), does not necessarily affect the cooling ability of the cooling system to a degree where it's a problem.


I had a V6 in my B5. It was a 12V, so I can't speak for the changes made on the 30V engines, but it had both a block bleed valve, and the high bleed point (which is the twin bleed valves on the D2).
The block blender was mounted on the engine rear coolant cross-over pipe between the heads.
You had to open both bleeders and bleed the block first before filling the rest of the system.
Even then I would still have to 'burp' the system as I ran it up to temp with the expansion cap open. Real PITA.

MJ will know if the 2.8's still have the block bleeder on them.