Weird overheating problem *updated*

SON240sx Automotive
1

alright, just some background info

  1. my gas gauge is out of commission, always reads full unless im on my last 5 litres or whatever. drifting too much caused this for some odd reason.

  2. my tach meter sometimes bounces up and down and sometimes works on and off. currently working right now

  3. my clutch fan is gone and replaced with dual altima fans. one fan goes on all the time and the 2nd fan goes on when the a/c turns on.

so my problem started last night when i went for a drive to do some errands. it was pretty cold so after 5min of driving i turned up the heat. the heat was blowing cold air even thought my engine read it was inbetween hot and cold. i was thinking it was pretty weird but just did my stuff. i reached my destination and left the car on idle for about 5min. i went back into the car and was freezing and turned up the heat again. to my surprise it still blowed cold air after having the car on for 10min or so.

i start driving and then i start to see my themometer go up. this is the first time it happend so i kept my eye on it. it started to rise and rise till it hit HOT and i’m thinking SHIT. so i slow down and try to keep the revs down and what not. then i’m thinking what the heck is wrong? then after driving for around 30seconds the heat finally blows HOT and my themometer goes back to normal in approx 5seconds.

so my question is…what the heck is wrong? i’ve never had overheating issues and i saw no smoke or anything. I was not driving hard, probably going less than speed limit of 50km/hr.

all the help would be appreciated. thanks!

edit: is my thermometer gauge out of commission as well? it just happens for the first 10min and after it seems normal. just drove for 30min and this problem happend exactly the same way for the first 10min of driving.
overheats for 1-2min. goes down within literally 10seconds or less.

2

Sounds like you have air in your cooling system somewhere.

3

maybe your thermostat is fucked like swiss challet

4

Is your coolant dirty? Sounds like something clogged the heater core and then eventually it unplugged.

5
6

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not only air, its probably dirty aswell…this is a common problem for cars…get a complete flush and fill of ur system and it will be fine…

7

i will be doing a complete rad flush hopefully this weekend along with an oil change, and spark plugs and etc etc. hopefully this will solve the problem.

oh ya, and when i flush my rad fluid out, does that eliminate the air in the cooling system as well?

thanks for all the help guys.

8

yeh they’ll bleed all the air out when you do the flush

it’ll clean out your heater core too

9

Most likely air in there as it was mentioned before, had the same problem.

10

samson, are you leaking coolant at all?

when my water pump was on it’s way out, it leaked. air got into the system. did the same thing.

11

thermostat and air issue…

12

welcome to my world, bleed the rad well and check or change your thermostat, i had the same problem

13

its air / very low to no coolant. there is no water flow through the heater core and radiator hence why the car is overheating and the heater core is not getting hot

how did this start? what changed since your car was working properly? do you have any coolant leaks or did you take the rad cap off for anything?

is there water anywhere?

14

a few days before i saw a small drop of coolant on the floor but after that i’ve seen nothing. i also knew i had a coolant leak a year ago when i could smell coolant in the cabin after hard driving. that went away and even when that problem was an issue, i had none of this weird heating issue. i will be doing a rad flush and checking the hoses for anything. i’ll keep you guys posted to see if it really is the air in the cooling system that could be causing this.

and to sasha’s question, nothing changed at all since this has happend. just out of the blue pretty much. then it happend again and pretty much everyday since then.

thanks for all the input guys.

15

If you are getting coolant in your interior, your heater core or the hoses to it are leaking somehow.

Get that fixed before your g/f bitches that her purse or whatever pile of shit she leaves on your floor is wet and sticky.

That woulad also cause the overheating you are experiencing.

Theo

16

Its also worthwhile to actually spray all the crap out of the fins of the Rad, as most have a huge collection, worse if you have A/C…

17

sorry, i meant to say that i could smell coolant IN the cabin. coolant has not leaked into the cabin. and when i did smell coolant from inside the cabin, we are talking almost a year now. i havn’t smelt coolant in a long time.

18

alright the update

since all the shops i know are busy till saturday, i went ahead and checked my coolant myself and poped open the radiator cap as well as checking the coolant resevoir?. it seemed to be a little low so i topped it up with some extra coolant. i drove to school on my normal route and everything seemed fine. didn’t overheat at all and heat came on after driving for 5mins or so (which would be the normal time it would take considering the temperatures now a days).

i guess it just needed to be topped off and maybe the new fluid pushed out some of the clogging issues or air issues i might have had before.

however, the temperature would rise to the normal level within a minute or two (which isn’t normal at these temperatures we have now) but cold air was still present. maybe the thermostat is bugged and releasing coolant at an earlier time, making it think that the engine is already warmed up when really it hasn’t warmed up at all, leading to why when the engine thermostat reads a normal medium temperature, but still pushing out ice cold air when the heat is on. that is my educated guess but i could be wrong.