Hey Hivers!
It's been an incredible past two weeks on the road, and things have been going very well for us... until a few days ago! Once again we were driving south back to Kortrijk from Utrecht and our van started warning us that the engine was overheating. I was able to stabilize the engine and when I opened up the hood, I noticed that the radiator fluid was almost completely empty. Of course, the first instinct is to check for any leaks, and thus I refilled the entire system, and ran the engine for a full cycle to see if we were losing any water... nothing. We popped back on the road and after another 30km the motor started to overheat again, this time with only a few kilometers away from our final destination, we were able to pullover and call ADAC and have them tow our car to a local mechanic in Kortrijk.
The following day, when the garage finally had a chance to take a look at our engine, they found that the issue appears to be that the fluid that enters the engine chamber is not being pumped back out and reconverted into cooled water. This means either we have a problem with the valve that is connected to the back end of the cooling system, OR the the worst case scenario, a problem with our motor. The van is only 6 years old, and while we've driven it nearly 200.000KM, it is still rather valuable considering the explosion in the secondary market for automobiles due to supply chain disruption. Therefore, we are hoping that the van will be repaired and in good form by next week, but if it is indeed the motor that has the problem, then we will need to consider our next steps in how we will move forward. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this is not the problem, because it would end up being quite expensive to repair!
Needless to say, your upvotes on this post will go into the van reparation fund ;)
Thanks all and HIVE ON!