2002 Malibu losing Antifreeze

If you are within the warranty period, they will probably help you. If you are not, but raise enough stink, they might help you.

Your problem could be the intake gasket but you have to have it diagnosed to be sure.

Hope you enjoy your next GM.

These things seem to have a nearly 100% failure rate up through at least the 2002 model year. I'm not sure if and when a real "fix" was ever developed by GM. The 3.1/3.4l engines get these failures all the time. Ours went at about 40k miles, which luckily was still in the extended warranty period.

Ignoring it is a bad option as the antifreeze often contaminates the motor oil. When the contamination gets bad enough it can take out the whole engine.

GM has shown nearly zero interest in taking responsibility for this design weakness once you are out of warranty.

John

Did this mechanic of yours actually look at the car? You can't diagnose a problem without inspecting it. There could be many reasons why your car is leaking coolant. Take it to a shop and get it checked out. If it does turn out to be an intake gasket, call up GM and see what they will do for you. They recently told me they couldn't do anything with my 2001 Montana, but it has well over 200,000km's on it. With only 40,000 miles on yours, they may help. But, like I said, get it checked out and don't worry about something until you know for sure what to worry about.

I am sorry, sounds like your Intake Gasket failed...they all do on these enginges, yours is kind of early though with only 40k miles. Reach for about $800 out of your wallet.