Hey helpful people! (I hope...) I've recently been having trouble with my 87 Camaro, and it looks like I can pinpoint it to a leak in the lower hose that connects to the radiator. I don't know much about no car fixin', so I really don't know what this hose does specifically or what it connects to, but I crawled under my car and can see a steady stream of coolant pouring out of what appears to be a tiny hole in the bottom of this hose. I'm 90% sure this is the case, but my pessimistic side is telling me it could be something worse and scarier. As in, that the coolant is just running down this hose and it only looks like it coming out of it, when it's actually coming out somewhere else... I recently (and for the last time) got my oil changed at a Jiffy Lube and didn't make it home before my car started to overheat (The light didn't come on, but it smelled awful and was smoking a little). Apparently I had a "major coolant leak" they knew about but didn't tell me about. When I opened my radiator cap today (I haven't driven the car in about a week), I noticed that radiator was absolutely filled to the top with coolant. This seemed unusual to me, since I thought you weren't supposed to fill it that much, but as I said I don't know much so I'm probably wrong. Anyway, that's when I noticed this hose leak. My first question is though, if it's just a hole in this hose, why did my engine overheat? My 2nd question: Assuming it's just this hose, what will the run me to replace it? I had to put in a grossly expensive coolant bleed valve a few months ago, and I"m not looking forward to paying so much for a cheap part again. Thanks, everybody!

the hose can be purchased at any auto parts store, its held on with gear clamps. You can change it yourself in 15 minutes. It may be stuck to the water pump a bit, but you can cut it off, its no good anyway.
Just keep in mind, the cooland will all spill out when you remove the hose, have a large catch pan handy, don't lay under the hose, ect.

the hoses do go bad, so if the coolant is running off the bottom of the hose, with no trail going up farther, its most likey the hose.

Do yourself a favor, find another shop to do the work on your car. Im sure there are exceptions, but pepboys and many of the other chain service centers, do not hire the best mechanics in the world, if you can call them mechanics.

Or take this as an opportunity to start learning how to work on your own car and save some money by doing it yourself.

Sounds good to me, friend.
Changing the house sounds like it shouldn't be too hard...I'd just need to find a way to get it up somewhere...Since I don't really feel like drowning in coolant.

I have another question:
Since my radiator was, and continues to look completely overfilled, could it have just overflowed while I was driving and sprayed all over my engine, causing it to get hotter and thus causing this smoke?