graveshb

iTrader: (1)

Alright, i have read a few threads on overheating, and quite honestly i'm confused as to what is happening to my car. if i am not specific enough please let me know what you need to know to help me figure out what is wrong. thank you in advance for any help.

Background info:
this weekend was the first time i've driven from school in columbia, sc to home jacksonville, fl. on the drive, my low coolant light came on. i believe i was low on coolant, but seeing as i opened the reservoir while it was hot, the coolant bubbled out. and i do not know if it was low or not. i bought coolant, let the car sit for 15 minutes, poured the coolant in up to the full line and preceded south. light came on again after 15 minutes, pulled over, opened the hood, coolant was a little low. started to open the cap, but coolant began to rise. closed the cap, got in and drove home no problems. this was thursday afternoon. 100 degrees F. coolant was a little low when i got home, but still almost at the full line. drove to the dealership, told a service guy what i had noticed, he assured me it was a bad coolant level sensor sticking. but the car was never actually looked at. it sounded logical to me, ive read about that happening alot. I never saw the coolant temp. gauge increase. oil temp was normal. i placed newspaper under the engine that night, no coolant on newspaper, and coolant was at the same level the next morning.

current problem/ situation:
I drove back to school today, from jacksonville, fl to columbia, sc. i drove basically with the flow of traffic on 95, perhaps a little faster, but not what i would consider driving hard. i watched for the coolant level sensor to come on, it never did. i checked the coolant temp. gauge periodically and i never noticed it increase. I stopped once 30 minutes outside of columbia to fill up. drove the rest of the way, and all appeared to be fine. I decided i should check my engine bay just to make sure coolant level looked alright. when i popped the hood, steam started to come up from the front of the hood. i opened the hood, and the coolant was bubbling in the container, i did not touch the cap, and coolant was leaking at a fast rate, but i could not see from where by looking down on the engine bay. the coolant drained completely. i turned the keys in the ignition, i did not start the engine, but i wanted to check the gauges. the coolant temp gauge was buried into the red. i did not think to look at the oil temp gauge so i dont know if that was hot as well. sorry if you need to know that. I do not think the gauge budged during the drive but it is possible that the gauge changed sometime in between me stopping to get gas and arriving in columbia. I did start to smell coolant shortly before i pulled into the parking lot at school.

mikroehl

my best guess would be bad radiator, check to see if you have bugs in it.. also check your cooling fans make sure they are coming on

ken-x8

From the "backgound" part of your post I'd say there was no problem. The coolant level float does fail, so it's usually nothing for the light to come on. If you take the radiator cap off any car when it's hot you'll get coolant overflowing. (The cap on the coolant bottle is the radiator cap - that bottle is essentially the top tank.)

But from the second half, you've got a leak somewhere. You need to keep loking until you find it. Was the coolant coming out of the tank's overflow? Was there a puddle under the car? Try the newspaper thing again to see if that points to where.

Ken

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

no there was no coolant coming out of the overflow on the top tank. i read somewhere that the tank itself sometimes fails, or gets a hole in it. i wonder if this could be the problem. now that i have had some time to calm down, my only real concern is if my engine was damaged, i know that if the temp. gauge reads as hot as it did that the engine could be damaged, but i dont believe it read that hot while the engine was running. i know that doesnt make any sense, that the engine is only going to cool down after it stops running and that if it is that hot while off it should have been slightly hotter while running, but i didnt know if perhaps the lack of coolant in the system when the gauge read hot would affect the overall temp.

*also im confused as to why the coolant did not drain during the drive, but only when stopped. I am not positive that the coolant didnt drain during the drive, but a substantial amount of coolant came out while i was watching, and the low coolant light never came on during the drive, but did when it drained. i have no reason to believe the coolant level sensor is bad.

ZOOM-I-DO

Check the nipple on the base of the bottle. It can crack and has had problems. As far as the overheating go's the temp sensor went high when you lost the water. I doubt you did any harm to the engine. Just find that leak.

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

I took the car in to the dealer yesterday to locate the leak and get a quote. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. Thank you all for the help. I appreciate it.

wcs

iTrader: (2)

Keep us posted to what they find.

BTW just as no one has said it yet.
Never ever never ever ever never remove the rad cap when the engine is hot.

I'm going to guess
Bad Coolant Sensor and either a cracked coolant bottle or radiator

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

The guy called me yesterday, and said that when they pressurized the system, it was leaking, and that it was due to the thermostat sticking. But it should be fixed by wednesday.

yulandop

what did they charge you?

wcs

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for the update
However your post confuses me a bit.

So when they pressurized the system it started leaking from where?

The cause was a failed (stuck) T-Stat.
<scratches head> I didn't think a stuck T-Stat would do that mmmm

If the T-Stats fails sure and it could cause you car to overheat depending what position it got stuck in ... yeah

Would you please elaborate a little bit more ... Thanks

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

Hey sorry, to be perfectly honest I'm not exactly sure why the thermostat was causing it to leak. I believe the guy said that it was sticking in a way that made the engine think it needed to heat up more, and that is why it was leaking coolant. I guess it leaks coolant to heat up more when its too cold? Sorry i don't know more, but when I pick it up I will make sure I know exactly what the problem was so that I can inform yall.
And the charge is $341.91 I know I could get the part for cheaper, but I need the car fixed by Friday and I didn't know if I could get everything I needed in and installed by then.

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

thermostat was replaced, coolant system no longer leaks, but radiator fan motor is shot. should be repaired by tomorrow afternoon

Highspeed

iTrader: (2)

Trust me and take this advice from me owning my 04 auto...if you are going to be driving aggressive or making mountain runs and stuff as a crew, like we do at the Texas 8, get a tranny cooler and install it. When I was at the Texas 8 running my car with the group, I was over heating due to my tranny getting too hot. Once I installed the tranny cooler, I have noticed about a 20-25 degree temp change, for the better. I have a ScangaugeII installed on my car so I can see the read out of my tranny temp...telling you that so you are not wondering how the hell I know the tranny temps and the changes I have seen lol.

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

I appreciate the advice, and will take it as soon as I recover from these repairs.

graveshb

iTrader: (1)

Sorry to bump this relatively old thread, but for anyone reading that cares; The repairs have solved the problem. I'm looking at installing the transmission cooler soon, simply because i'm planning on autoxing soon. Biggest problem now is cleaning all of the coolant left in the engine bay... a weekend job once i find time.