I smelled coolant anytime I stopped while I was driving with the top down. Went on for a month or two. I had no leaks during this period. Just a hot coolant smell. Made me think a lot about the water pump and I spent a LOT of time on the forum doing research. Still, no indication of an actual failure until the evning I drove home and the drops on the driveway that I thought was ther AC and the next morning when it over heated.
There was no residue on the water pump, hose, etc. when I removed the water pump. As for how much did I lose, well ion that 24 hour period, I lost at least one gallon. I pulled out 3.5-4 gallons when I emptied the system at home prior to replacing the water pump. FWIW, I too had an 01 cap. No condensation on the trunk lid though. No fluid under the rug either.
The thing to keeo in mind is even if you repalce the cap, if you have been putting distilled water in your resivoir, your coolant mixture will be below par and your boiling point of the mixture will be lower than designed. So you may continue to experiance overflows each time you stop even if nothing else is wrong. And each time you add water, you just make it worse.
Somewhere along the way you'll have to flush it and refill it anyway. If you actually lost enough coolant to suck air in to the cooling system, you have to butp it or risk an air pocket. If you are smelling coolant at all, that's a bad sign. Period. You can either be proactive about it and repalce the suggested parts (like most it is water pump, thermostat, cap - maybe hoses as I did) or just go wtih the flow (pun intended) and see what happens/hope for the best.
If you decide to buy parts and are not a PCA member, join. The savings for parts at the dealer (if they participate) can be substantal. Mine savings already paid for my two year membership. I bought my water pump and gasket at Suncoast before I knew about it, but I bought my coolant fromt he dealer. $35 a gallon vs. $50 at Pelican and Suncoast was not much cheaper and the S&H made it a lot more expensive.
FWIW, changing a water pump is pretty easy and most recommend 50-60K. Mine failed at 68K. It was an OE part and I replaced it with an OE part.
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