I had the same problem with my 97 se, it ended up being the pos battery cable. it rubbed through and was making intermintent contact with the frame rail. Make sure you inspect the entire battery cable both pos and neg, sometimes cracked insulation lets moisture in and they corrode causing a problem and is a pain to find. As for your coolant loss.. sounds like early signs of Upper intake failure.. check for coolant on your spark plugs you don't want hydo- lock..

Rachael , make sure you pull the boots off the cable ends at the battery. Clean with a wire brush, apply dielectric grease (available at your local parts store), and reassemble.

But do keep an eye on the coolant consumption. It may not be getting into your oil yet (keep watching that just the same), but could simply be leaking to an inlet, and being burned off in the combustion chamber.

just to throw my 2 cents in.. before my UIM broke there was no coolant in the oil only on the plugs and at the time I did not know about the UIM problem. so I pressure tested the radiator/cooling system and the antifreeze/pressure dropped, scratched head, went to start hydro locked it. pulled spark plugs cynder #3 was chock full of coolant. scratched head, went online, found out about the UIM.. So I guess I was lucky that the car was not running when it hydro locked. I guess it was a good thing I forced the UIM to fail when I pressure checked the system better in the garage then on the road. the only thing I broke the ears off the started because I tried to start it before pulling plugs.. lesson learned..

Chompy, your UIM failed at the EGR stovepipe/coolant passage area. That'* why you saw that effect.

Keep in mind the LIM gaskets can fail just as easily because of what DEXcool does to them. They symptoms will vary based on the amount of coolant injested, and where it'* coming from.

If you look at an L36 LIM, you'll see that the 'blind' coolant passage from either cylinder head is directly adjacent to the PCV passage on the front bank. The 'open' coolant passage on the rear bank is directly adjacent to the PCV passage. If your LIM gaskets fail or just start to leak from this location, you can fill your crankcase with coolant and water even without the car running.

Wow... didn't see this one coming. You know how it was leaking coolant and I didn't know where it was going? (let'* see if I explain this right) My mechanic looked at it today and said that my radiator cap was only giving 5 psi instead of 16 psi, and that was causing the coolant to just keep burning, which is why it was steadily disappearing as I drove. Or something like that. It made sense when he said it But I was so sure it was the intake! Does this happen a lot?

Doesn't make sense to me either.:? If your cap was only providing 5 psi, I would think that the coolant would be under less pressure internally and less likely to leak out your bad gaskets. If it were summertime, a higher pressure on the system would raise the point at which the coolant boils, but that is hardly a concern in February. But, unless I am missing something (always possible) if you do have an internal leak (coolant disappearing - no external leaks to be found) a cap that provides 11 additional pounds of pressure on the system will just encourage a small leak to become a larger one. Now, if coolant were leaking out the cap because it was bad, then a new cap might help, but if that were the case, you should have seen evidence of that as an external leak.

There are some cases where more pressure can seal a leak, but it is not as likely as more pressure making the leak worse.

He did say it was a bad cap, and just put on a new one. :?

I would check the coolant level in the radiator as well as the overflow tank every morning before starting it up for at least a couple of weeks to make sure the level is not dropping. Radiator should be full to the top.

Will do, thanks!