my car overheats when i am idling but not when moving and eats up a bottle of antifreeze every 3 days can someone tell me how to fix the problem

 

I'm guessing that the car overheats because the coolant level is down. Do you live in a hot climate? It doesn't overheat when you are driving because you are moving more cooling air through the radiator. and the coolant, even at a lower level, is circulating faster.

You obviously have a coolant leak somewhere. Have you tried to isolate it? The usual suspects are cracked hoses, water pump bearing, and holed radiator. The hoses and water pump you replace. On the radiator, you can try some radiator stop-leak stuff. Get under the hood and start sniffing and looking for steam. Your nose is usually the best tool to alert you that there is a problem.

 

my plastic lid for my overfill tank is cracked and nothing but steam comes out of the hose to the overfill tank

 

The expansion tank is not pressurized, so the fact that the lid is cracked is not a big deal. I am sure it doesn't help, but it is not the root cause of your problem.

The fact that there is not liquid in the expansion tank is not good. There should always be some liquid in there. This reinforces the fact that there is a leak somewhere. It could be that the tank itself is cracked and any coolant that is dumped into the tank by expansion is then dumped onto the street which in turn lowers the overall coolant level in the system when the engine cools. Or it could be the other things that I suggested earlier. You need to find the source of your leak. If you can't find it with your eyes or your nose, you can put some dye into the coolant which is used with a UV light to highlight the source of the leak.

 

Cooling systems fail to do
their job when we don't do ours. Regular preventive maintenance is the
first step toward reliability. Under ideal circumstances, you should
drain, flush, and service your cooling system every spring,
and properly dispose of the old coolant via local recycling efforts.</span>

 

yup its time to go to a shop and have the system pressure tested before you have some real damage done to your vehicle.