Impending Doom ?

[Paulj]

Noticed a bit of a hot rad water type smell this morning while sat in traffic, temp went up to 103, but then came back down again when fans kicked in.

The car seems to have used about 1/2 litre of water in the last six weeks (2500 miles), is this normal ?

Hope this isnt a sign of impending HGF its an S2 which I hoped were not as prone to this as the S1's.

Any ideas , or do I just wait and see....

[weed]

I'd make sure the waterpump is working and make sure the thermostat is opening..
Seems to me that the engine is not getting too hot yet (in motion and the coolant temps are not too high for the fans to control).
Get it seen to ASAP or the temps may suddenly get hot enough to compromise the headgasket.
m

[GKP]

When you say it's used half a ltr of water do you mean you topped it up to max and now it's back down to the min level? That's where they will normally sit.
103 degrees is ok as long as the fans do cut in and bring the temp back down again.
You might have smelt the rad cap venting a little. Maybe for around 10 quid it's worth replacing it?

[theRossatron]

doesn't sound to bad to me, at worst maybe a leaky pipe? maybe need a new clip.