About a week and a half ago, my low coolant light came on. This has happend before, and when it happend then, I just added more coolant, fixed it. So I figured it was the same problem, and I just added more coolant, without checking the level (yeah i know I'm stupid, but it was cold outside)

Now my car is overheating like crazy. From a cold start it'll get into the red in 5 minutes. Isn't it true that too much coolant can cause heating problems like this?

I think what I'm going to try to do is drain the system, and replace the thermo while I'm in there. Then fill it up with fresh stuff. I think the low coolant light was just the sensor going bad, which I read is common for these cars.

Think this will solve the problem?

 

Sticking thermo could cause it, but you may also hhve air in the system, which is just as bad. You need to bleed the system to make sure.

-Shannon

 

You don't want higher than a 50/50 mix of coolant and water (use distilled water). Water is a better heat conductor than coolant, but coolant raises the boiling point, protects against freezing, lubriates the water pump and prevents corrosion of the block.

As stated above, make sure you properly bleed air out of the system.

 

I'm really hoping that it's not my water pump dying, and the car has gotten up to the red a couple times, because I had to drive my car, so I hope it didn't fry my radiator

 

I would be more concerned about warping/cracking a head or blowing a head gasket than frying a radiator.

 

OK, so I replaced the thermostat, and drained the coolent. It worked fine for a couple days, but now it's back to doing the same thing.

Strange thing is that it won't always overheat, if I cruise at around 2300 rpm, the needle drops down rappidly (pretty damn fast) to about 180* and will stay there. But, as soon as I stop at a light, or just change gear so I don't have to cruise so high, it creeps up and up.

I looked under the hood, and there is a bit of coolent on the underside of my hood, and on my intake elbow, but I can't seem to find where it's coming from. I'm going to continue to look for it.

What would cause this? just a leak somewhere? the water pump dying (and needing higher revs to make it pump anything)?

 

Today I opened the radiator cap, and poured in half a gallon of coolent, without an end in sight. There isn't much of a puddle or anything under the car, just a little dark spot.

I open the bleeder lines, nothing comes out

There is plenty in the resevior

I ran the car after i put the half gallon in, just sitting at idle the temp was well over 210 in under 3 minutes.

HELP PLEASE

 

Sounds like your WP is on the way out. The weep hole is on the bottom of the pump and will drain down onto the serpentine system. Once this happens it gets flung everywhere. This will also kill the opti QUICK.

-Shannon

 

damn, not what I wanted to hear

 

Did you change the thermostat as you said you intended to?

 

yes, thermostat is changed

 

are your fans coming on and functioning properly?

 

they're coming on, so i suppose there isn't anything wrong with them