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!

 

[No_Skillz]

Fans are definitely in the plans if this doesnt work, but what's the word on aluminum radiators? I hear some people say that the stock bronze/copper alloy is a better heat conductor, yet all the "performance" radiators I see are aluminum.

 

[4BangR-x]

Argh, you should have replaced the thermo when your coolant level was low, that way you dont have to drain anymore. I dont think I need to tell you this, but use an oem thermo. And not autozone oem, but Mitsubishi OEM.

On Radiators, Koyo seems to be doing pretty good for other peeps. I dont own one though. They are cheaper, and are OEM on alot of cars.

 

[No_Skillz]

Ya, I know i should have done it while coolant was out, but I ran out of time since it started raining. It's not a big deal though, since I still have 2 gallons of distilled water and 1/2 a gallon of Prestone Dex-cool left over. I'll just do it next weekend.

 

[92eagleTSI]

quick question, whats the deal with distilled water in cooling system?

 

[4BangR-x]

do you really want impurities running through your engine causing corrosion?

 

[No_Skillz]

quick question, whats the deal with distilled water in cooling system?

I'm basically being anal. Coolant will usually protect your engine from corrosion, but the purer the water the more heat it can transfer. Of course, adding coolant is depurifying the water, but at least I know that 60% is all H2O. We'll see if it works or not, but it gives me peace of mind knowing I tried with the best materials possible.

 

[92eagleTSI]

I'm basically being anal. Coolant will usually protect your engine from corrosion, but the purer the water the more heat it can transfer. Of course, adding coolant is depurifying the water, but at least I know that 60% is all H2O. We'll see if it works or not, but it gives me peace of mind knowing I tried with the best materials possible.

Hey i'm not knockin it I was just curious as to wether it was better for cooling. If it works for you i may just use it myself, just had never heard of using it. I've never really given any thought to what i put in for coolant I guess I should.

 

[MonkRX]

Hey i'm not knockin it I was just curious as to wether it was better for cooling. If it works for you i may just use it myself, just had never heard of using it. I've never really given any thought to what i put in for coolant I guess I should.

Its just that little extra improvement you can make . Distilled water is cheap. Its better than the (possibly) hard water your getting from your garden hose.

 

[destik1]

Sorry I haven't had the time to post a reply, but I got the new thermostat in, and the car is no longer overheating Adjusted the throttle body cable, and it is no longer sticking open Thanks for the great advice to help get my dsm up and runnin again!

 

[Booster-Shot]

Hey to make a long story short, my car is overheating. It will get to the point where large amounts of steam rise from the car.

My problem is that I can hear the hissing of the leak but I cant trace it for the life of me. It sounds like it is near the thermostat but maybe a little closer to the firewall.

Where are some locations near there that are cooling related? There are so many hoses I dont know which one could be causing the problem.

I realize the question is vauge but Im just really confused. Thanks for the help.

 

[blackGSX2g]

There are two large coolant hoses that go into and come out of your heater core. Then there are two that go into and out of your throttle body. The rest of them you should be able to see.

Are there any puddles underneath your car after you leave it sit? Can you get the car up to temp and shut it off to hear leaks a bit better? That would allow your coolant to still be under pressure while getting rid of the engine noise.

Sears sells a cooling system pressure tester, you could pick that up and see what that reveals. Other than that, your going to have to go with the dye and black light method.

 

[jayman77]

pressurize the cooling system and make sure its full. if you wanna find the leak bad enough you will. just have to be very thurough.

 

[Booster-Shot]

Thanks for the help. I went and found a small tear in one of the hoses going into the thermostat. It sucked because the tear was too small to create any puddles so all I would see is steam. -Problem Solved, You Can Lock This Thread.

 

[KGB Pilot125]

Sorry I haven't had the time to post a reply, but I got the new thermostat in, and the car is no longer overheating Adjusted the throttle body cable, and it is no longer sticking open Thanks for the great advice to help get my dsm up and runnin again!

Thats funny that we live kinda close and had the exact same problem and it turns out to be the simplest fix, loosen 2 bolts, move a little and retighten. if only all of my DSM problems were this easy

 

[dyno_detour]

I'm having the same exact problem as you so did I guy I knew and he said that he loosened his throttle cable a little bit and it fixed the problem. I guess apparently it was a little too tight and the high temperatures during the summer caused it to "stick" open a little bit. I just loosened mine today to see how it works out, but during an hour long drive this weekend, my car started to overheat slightly and idled like you mentioned. I'm hoping this fixes the problem as it did my friend's. Try this and see how it works out for you.

Sinai/// I have been trying to figure out my idle surge problems for over 2 months. Yes, I have read Terry's Troubleshooting numerous times. My question is would the throttle cable stick more in warm/hot weather? In the winter time I have no idle probs, but when summer comes my RPM's jump up to 2500 after I've been driving it for 15 mins. plus.

I can't wait to try loosening the throttle cable tomorrow.

 

[SinaiTSi]

Sorry I haven't had the time to post a reply, but I got the new thermostat in, and the car is no longer overheating Adjusted the throttle body cable, and it is no longer sticking open Thanks for the great advice to help get my dsm up and runnin again!

No problem. Just glad I could help.

Sinai/// I have been trying to figure out my idle surge problems for over 2 months. Yes, I have read Terry's Troubleshooting numerous times. My question is would the throttle cable stick more in warm/hot weather? In the winter time I have no idle probs, but when summer comes my RPM's jump up to 2500 after I've been driving it for 15 mins. plus.

I can't wait to try loosening the throttle cable tomorrow.

I got your pm and sent you one back. I hope it works out for you as well, let me know.

 

[Xoxol]

Hey, guys. I know overheating story is as old as world but still. I've searched this forum and found out most problems with overheating whilte car is running. My problem is opposite - overheat causes while idling (stop sings, tfaffic lights etc.)
Here is a full story. I got my 97 RS non-turbo two months ago. While driving from previous owner I noticed a niddle of the temp gauge is a bit higher than middle point. I just switched from Honda Civic and for me it was unusual. Once I came home, first thing I did was flushing the radiator and adding premixed 50/50 coolant. Since that time I'm having this overheating issue.
The symtoms are:
- while driving everything is fine untill I stop. Once I stop on traffic light or whatsoever the temp goes up almost to the top of the gauge.
- meanwhile, if I roll even with the speen of 5 miles/hour everything is fine.
When I pop up the hood, the pressure in all rubber tubes is high and the the overflow bottle if full, sometimes even thows up extra coolant onto ground. When I add coolant, looks like it's half emty.

I changed the pressure cap, fan temp switch and thermostat (I even was trying to drive w/o t-stat for a week - didn't help)
I started driving with A/C on. For few weeks everything was fine, and than same story again. I took a car to the shop, spent there 1/2 day and they couldn't do anything because car wasn't overheating. The temp raises till 195 F, t-stat opens and everything is fine. I left shop, was driving for two weeks with no problem and few days ago same story happed again. I let car cool down and tried to check for presence of air in the system. I started the engine, opened the pressure cap and noticed there were air bulbs coming out from the t-stat continuosly. So I let engine run until t-stat opened adding coolant time to time. Then I closed the cap and let it idle for 15 mins and it didn't overheat. A week of driving (with A/C on)and everything was fine. Tonight I had overheating again.

The only thing left untouched is water pump but it seems working fine as there is a pressure in the system. But I cannot understand why it overheats once I turn A/C off and even if I have it on why it starts throwing the coolant out into overflow bottle? I also noticed that if extra coolant goes into bottle, later on it sucks coolanf back into system (which is fine as I know).
So here is a question - should I change the water pump or should I get myself a bicycle?

I've also heard there could be such an issue if head gasket burns through and gas pushes the coolant out from the system. But why in my case it's like time-to-time issue? And why don't I have this problem while driving?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Xoxol]

I found this topic where same problem was described. I PMed that guy if he fixed this issue but he never replied
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214076&highlight=overheat

 

[98gst14b]

next time you see it overheat Id pull it over and make sure the fans are on if they are your problem might be the water pump.

 

[Xoxol]

The fans are on. I can hear them starting plus as I said I let car idle to see what happens and fans start right on time. The first fan starts approximately same time as t-stat opens and second one starts if temperature hits more that 3/4 of gauge (about 210-215 I guess)

 

[Xoxol]

Today's update. This morning on my way at work everything was fine, the niddle was all the time at the middle of the temp. gauge. I was sitting in the traffic for 1 hour and still there was no overheating. But on my way home in the evening by the time I parked at home the niddle was in the red zone, the overflow bottle was full and coolant was leaking on the ground from it. I don't understand what's going on. Can anyone explain it to me, please?
Thanks.

Update:
In approx. one hour I started the car and let it idle for 10-15 minutes with AC on and then with AC off. It wasn't overheating that much. Is it possible that water pump works at low rpms but somehow fails at high rpms?

 

[Xoxol]

The answer - head gasket failure.

 

[rgirard413]

i was just curious if there could be a correlation between my cars ac system not turning on (the light on the button goes on but no rpm fluctuation or ac turning on) and the fact that sometimes my tempurature gauge starts to move up into the hot zone while im sitting at a light for example. If im driving the car it goes back down(which im assuming has to do with the radiator possibly being bad, had this problem before).

thanks

 

[BlownAway]

Yes and I had to change my thermostat.

 

[ddavisaf]

The AC not working could be something as simple as the connector is not fully plugged in. It's underneath the intake manifold on the driver's side. The connector sits on top. Make it sure's making a solid connection. Your belt may have snapped off, or your might have burned up the AC compressor.

For the overheating. I wrote a Tech Article about it. There's a ton of things to check in there. Obviously, tackle the easy/cheap ones first before you move onto the more difficult procedures.