About a year ago my car was overheating everytime i idled for a good 5-10 minutes and i took it to a shop and got it fixed. It was a bad sensor. Just yesterday though when i was sitting in a drive-thru the temp gague was creeping, just to the tip of the beginning of the red. After i got out of the drive-thru i pulled over to see if i got all my food so i turned off the car. I turned it right back on and drove a few seconds and it went all the way in the read with the check engine (i believe) light came on and coolant was spilling out like crazy. I let it set for a good 10 minutes and drove it back home with no problem. My question is could if of overheated due to bad mixture of coolant and water? I know i had way more water than coolant in there. PLEASE HELP!! Give me your thoughts!

Thanks Greg

 

Running a water rich coolant/water mix actually provides better heat transfer than a 50/50 ethylene glycol/water mix. Water is a better heat conductor than ethylene glycol. But a water rich mixzture has a lower boiling point.

You need to figure out if it was the "SES" light or the "check gauges" light that came on. If the SES light came on, scan it for codes to determine why it turned on. But more logically, the check gauges light would have come on for the coolant temp gauge being in the red.

Refill the coolant properly, bleed the air out of the system correctly, and restart. See what happens to the coolant temp, and verify that the fans are coming on. You should get the first fan (or low speed, depending when your car was built in the 94 model year) starting up at 226*F, and the second fan (or high speed) at 235*F. Make sure your radiator cap is holding 18psi.

Avoid getting coolant/water on the Optispark distributor.


Check the radiator cap to insure it is holding 18psi.

 

Yea it was the check gauges light. Right when the temp gauge got far into the red it came on and also a few seconds later the low coolant light came on. I am going to bleed the air out and re fill as needed and check the fans. Thanks for the reply. I am just still stumped on why it always gets so hot when i am idling. Is this common for Camaros?

 

Idle temp will increase with any car that has electric fans. The fans should come on, though, before it would overheat.

http://shbox.com/1/4th_gen_tech2.html#cooling

 

are the fans turning on? i run just water here in florida and never over heat, i would think its a bad sensor not telling pcm to turn fans on or air in the system, faulty thermostate.

 

Also check that your radiator is clean,mine had a bunch of mud and crud after cleaning it it ran cooler!

 

Just something to think about. As our cars age, so to do the inner workings of the parts. You may have significant blockage/gunk build-up inside the radiator, crud/grass and other stuck on the front surface of the radiator also blocking air flow through the radiator. You may also have wear on the water pump impellor that is reducing the amount of water flow through the engine/radiator. Water/coolant mix and air bubbles are just the tip of the problems available to cooling.

For those running straight water down south, make sure you run some additive (anti-freeze or Water Wetter) that contains an anti-corrosive to protect parts of the cooling system