Car Overheated / Overheating / Overheats [MERGED]

[NTRCOOL]

OVERHEATING? The issues and their solutions have remained the same- either you don't have enough cool air reaching the rad, there's a cooling system obstruction which is preventing coolant from circulating, or your head gasket has failed and is allowing coolant to be consumed or pushed away from the engine.

Discuss all possible overheating problems and solutions here.


OK,
I just left my house to go over to my GF's,and happen to look down and see my needle right before the red mark. This just happened out of nowhere. I stop the car as quickly as i can, and pour in some coolant(Coolant a little low). Still same thing. Welp im in the middle of the road, and HAD to get it home. Im only 5 min from my house. I decided to try and make it(I really had no other choice). Welp I drive no faster than 20mph, and the temp needle is BARELY into the red the whole way.And occasionaly to the left of it. Am I ok?? Do ya think any damage was done?? And im thinking either thermostat, or water pump. For each of those, whats a round about $$ figure to get replaced?? Any info you have would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[ChillinGST]

Coolant is basically new as radiator was just put in recently. Haven't seen any coolant in oil or vice versa. Someone mentioned something about stips to dip in the coolant to test for a blown headgasket, but napa said they don't carry them anymore...

 

[firefighter]

If you have a blown head gasket you will either be using coolant or oil.It has to go some where.Check your exhaust.If it's white thats coolant(steam) If its blue(oil).Check your fan motors. Also check all your duct work to your radior.Anotrher possibility is the radiator is air bound.

 

[nek]

If you have a blown head gasket you will either be using coolant or oil.It has to go some where.Check your exhaust.If it's white thats coolant(steam) If its blue(oil).Check your fan motors. Also check all your duct work to your radior.Anotrher possibility is the radiator is air bound.

Or out of your coolant overflow bottle. Thats where all mine went.

 

[ChillinGST]

If anything, i'm slowly loosing coolant. When i checked my overflow was empty and had to top it off the other week. I checked under the rad cap too, but it was still full.

 

[solar_eclipse89]

Mine did the same thing and I replaced the thermostat and that fixed the problem

 

[ChillinGST]

I went through a couple part store t-stats and then picked up an oem from the dealer.... all did the same thing.

 

[Silver99GSX]

Do you know the exact temp's or are you just looking at the stock gauge? You could get a coolant temp gauge and here's a site that sell's a water temp sensor adapter's so no drilling and taping needed.

STRI Water Temperature Sensor Adapter - P/N: WTSA

 

[Jay's_GSX]

chillingst, try running constant power to the to fans and see how that goes, youll have to hot wire it.
im having the same problem too.

 

[GST98 PR]

you can check ## coolant reserve after running the car if it is over flow, if so u should change ## radiator cap and check if that resolve the problem (13lbs radiator cap or 0.9) considering youve change ## radiator, t-stat, hoses, and water pump.

 

[Coopens]

Well, it wasn't the hose. Replaced it and it's still leaking.

Sending the car to the mechanic this weekend to get it looked at. I'll post what was wrong with it.

 

[ChillinGST]

Sorry guys, cap was replaced as well with all the other parts. It was running fine till recently. Maybe its just the dang t-stat sticking again.... I'll try and swap it out again and see if it does the same thing.

Also, most times i'm just basing this off the temp gauge, but have have hooked up the laptop, using evoscan, to confirm it is infact running warm.

This shouldn't be a fan or airflow problem as it only runs warm on the highway at higher rpm's. If i keep the car below 3k you would never even know there was a problem.

 

[91mitsuman]

Sounds like air In the system.how long has this problem been present. Back flushing the system may help crux build up on the heater core is another common problem with the descibed. By back flushing you will push all the crap out.

 

[my dreamt dsm]

Sounds like air In the system.how long has this problem been present. Back flushing the system may help crux build up on the heater core is another common problem with the descibed. By back flushing you will push all the crap out.

I second the heater core. See if your car is blowing hot air when desire. Also put your climate on defrost, fan off, and heater all the way hot. Drive for a few miles like that. I did almost everything you did and that is the last resort. When I over heat I turn on the air and temps drop back to normal so i drive around like that now for about 4 months.
Also make sure your fan switch is working by using a paper clip or girls bobby pin to connect it together to see if it works.

 

[ChillinGST]

I found a decent exhaust leak between my o2 housing and dp. I'm gonna get that sealed up this thursday and see if that fixes my problem.

 

[ThomasGSX]

It sounds like an airlock to me, park on an uphill slope run the car with the radiator cap off and heater on, and keep topping it off for a good 10 minutes.

 

[ChillinGST]

Ok, ill have to find a spot to park it and see if i can find any air in the system.

 

[95talongirl]

try the suggestions stated above; and if those do not help.. i'd venture to say you have either a blown head gasket or a cracked cylinder head. Cracked heads are known to cause temperature problems on the freeway; but stay "normal" in city type driving.

Mine did the same thing as yours for a long time until nothing helped keep the temps cool(er) on the freeway. Found #4 spark plug was tinged green.

 

[enash99]

I had the same problem. Mine was the cap. My cap had a damaged rubber seal. And the coolant pressure would cause me to loose coolant into my overflow. I was amazed when i found the problem and something so simple caused it.

 

[ChillinGST]

All good suggestions. Hopefully is not a cracked head, but then again thats a good excuse to upgrade


I'll pull the plugs and replace the cap and t-stat again just for grins.

I'll keep at it and keep you all posted. Thanks

 

[summerisway2hot]

My '97 TSi AWD has been toying with me for a while. I will give a short, but complete description of what I know, and hopefully someone can give some suggestions from there.

Probably a month ago, I began seeing emulsified oil in my coolant. Now, I am going to school for marine engineering, and I am very familiar with large diesels, so I know what emulsified oil looks like, and I know that it means bad things. I kept a very very (did I mention very?) close eye on the coolant, both in terms of cleaning out any crap I could and keeping it full (currently college student, trying to save enough money to fix it).

Yesterday, I was driving up north for opening weekend (going skiing). The temperature was significantly lower than it had been over the past few weeks, but the car was running alright. Since the car sat for so long, I have been periodically replacing all of the lines. During the day, I ran an errand for a friend of mine, got to a parking lot, dropped off what I needed to drop off, and my turbo coolant line blew apart. OK, a bit inconvenient, but I went down to Home Depot, got some clamps, and went to Advance Auto to get some correct hose, and installed it. Topped off the coolant, took out all the sludge I could, and I was off- no problems. I then began my drive of about an hour and a half to the mountain. If it matters, I've been trying to see the highest gas mileage I can get, so I was driving extremely gingerly (to the point that my last tank of gas was 31 mpg with nearly everything stock, and the way I was driving would have make this one a bit higher.) I stopped at the base of the mountain, walked around for about 5 minutes, then went back to the car and proceeded down the access road. It was cold outside, so I had my heat on fairly high. The access road is mostly downhill, so I applied very little gas going down, and the heat went away a little bit, but nothing that really worried me (no fuel=no heat).

At the end of the access road, I turned and started to drive to where I was spending the night. The first thing after the access road is a fairly steep, long hill, so I began going up. About halfway up the hill, I noticed that I had lost all heat. All of it. Cold air blowing. I have a temp gauge on the hose going from the tstat housing to the top of the radiator, it was reading 170 (a bit below, but not much below normal), and I looked at the stock gauge. It was pegged. I immedately shut down the car, pulled over, and popped the hood. I could hear boiling, so naturally I called a friend of mine and told him to bring water and himself to we could try to diagnose what was wrong. Since it was so cold, the engine had stopped boiling by the time he got there, so we waited another 25 minutes, and I started it up, and went over the top of the hill. The temp gauge was below the middle, and my secondary gauge was reading about 140. The rest of the ride was downhill- no gas, just coasting down the hill. The temp stayed put. I came into the driveway, let it sit for a minute, and the temp started to climb. I shut it off, popped the hood- boiling again. At this point, it was about 10-15 F out and it was dark, so I decided to wait till morning to work on it.

The next morning, I caught a ride to the hill, skied for half the day, then came back and began working on the car at about noon. I drained from the radiator, and got a little emulsified oil, but not much. I took apart the tstat housing. Quite a bit of crap caught around it, but it was still easy to move, and there was still plenty of coolant around it. I cleaned the housing, cleaned the tstat, put it back it, and put everything back together. Started it up, the temp went higher than normal, then dropped and the temp on the top hose to the radiator was at about 140. So far so good. I waited a bit longer... none such luck, it pegged out again. I took it apart again, cleaned it again, but had gotten frustrated and my ride was leaving, so I went with them.

Any ideas as to what should be next? I would have to guess either head gasket or oil cooler, but I dont know where to start. Another good point: my oil level DID NOT change the entire day, and it DOES NOT have emulsified oil or water in it (or else I would be much more unhappy). Any help is appreciated, and sorry for the long post.

 

[96DSM_Steve]

It might be a blown head gasket. I'm thinking you might just need to rebuild and look at everything like for cracks in the block witch would suck, but I would recommend a rebuild or just check head gasket first.

 

[awddarrell]

before you go freaking out about it being a blown head gasket or a crack in the block or whatever, try burping the coolant system.

lift up the front end or park on a steep incline front end up,
let it run, fill it up and then, put the cap on half way not all the way, shut off the car, top off again, run the car again, and repeat till the coolant does not go down, this might help you may just have a huge air bubble in the system this will also cause you to heave no heat (fyi), i could have sworn to god that mine had a blown head gasket and it turned out it just needed to be burped.

try that out and good luck.

 

[96DSM_Steve]

Wow...that would be good news if it would be that. Give a it a try

 

[summerisway2hot]

Well, I had tried burping it, I'll try again. The thing that struck me as odd about the whole thing is that it had been running fine for an hour and a half, then randomly no heat and overheating. Currently I'm pricing out what different things will cost me, if I were to do an HG, I know I should do head bolts and a timing belt while its off anyways, but what else should I look at?

 

[AGSX2NV]

I had a similar issue on mine and a couple of people said it was my HG so what i did was replace the thermostat with a high performance thermostat(it actually opens way before the stock one does), flush all my coolant and replaced it with new coolant all around even in the reservoir tank. Can you believe it worked? Not only that i saved myself a huge amount of money. Even tho a couple of months after that i started upgrading my bolt ons and decided to rebuilt my head, replace my head gasket for new and the head studs for ARP 12 point. Along with new timing belt, water pump and everything else for that matter. I guess i would say start with something small before like radiator flush and thermostat before changing the head gasket unless you have to. Also if you have to change your headgasket i recommend getting arp studs since you are already in there. Might as well you don't wanna go in twice Hope this helps