Werid overheat....

[TxAlero]

So ive been driving my Alero for about 5 months now with no problems what so ever. Now with that said yesterday i took her out on a hot and muggy day the temp like 95-97 with hummity around 80% or so..sticky. I just drove about 2 miles down the road and had to sit in some traffic for around 5-10 miutes then off to a store that was a mile down form there, then back home. Well the temp gage went all the way to the red by the time I was back home!!!!! Im thinking WTH is going on?? I turn on my heater to cool it off and im just getting cold air. YIKES!
So i get home park it and then the heat kicks in and the temp goes back down to the middle. Afer an hour i go check my fluids and top it off and start it back up. The temp gage stays at the first quarter mark. My wife dries it last night with no problems no overheat nothing!!
So what the heck could that have been??? Any clues and what I might be able to do to prevent that in the future....

[Nate's Alero]

Thermostat 100%.

[[ion] C2]

The thermostat could be completely closed and coolant still flows through the heater core on the LD9.

Sounds to me like there was a big blockage or a huge leak. How much exactly did you "top it off?" Also pay attention to your gauge. The red is BAD (260-280 °F) as in do not drive the car any further until you find a way to cool it down. It could mean the difference between fixing a small leak and replacing overheated components.

[Redog]

True that.

Put the Delta up to 265 and the head gasket leaked externally ever since :(

[Runaboveit]

He has a V6, going by his post history.

Hmm... Well, you are most likely going to have one of five issues.

1.) Thermostat could be faulty. Though I've never had one that fixes itself. Usually once they go bad, they stick that way (most are designed to fail in the open position to prevent overheating damage). But I'm sure it happens.

2.) You could have some big air pockets in your cooling system. This could show a false reading of the coolant temp gauge, and explain why you had no heat. Kind of unlikely for both of those symptoms at the same time.. but possible. Did you hear any hissing or gurgling sounds when you got home and turned it off?

3.) Your coolant temperature sensor is on it's way out, giving incorrect readings on the gauge.

4.) Cooling fans are not operating as they should, causing overheating after sitting in traffic for a short while. I had a situation where the fan wouldn't come on in traffic but once air started pushing through the blades (or carefully giving a quick light push on the fan blade) they would then kick on with their own power. But, my logic tells me if your cooling fans weren't working correctly and it was indeed overheating, you should of had hell coming out of those vents.

5.) Possessed dash cluster.

Keep note of whether the temp gauge stays at that quarter mark. It might seem "good" but something is wrong if it is not staying near the middle. If the thermostat is now stuck open, eventually you will get a service engine soon light because the coolant stays too cool and the computer will see that.

Our engines are designed to run best at the factory set temperature. Cooler is not always better. Leave it with a stuck open thermostat and you will start noticing decreased gas mileage, decreased performance, no or very little heat in the winter, and your transmission will prematurely wear because 1, it needs to be at a specific temperature before it will go into overdrive (which puts less stress on the tranny, less rpms from the engine, therefore better gas mileage) and 2, cold fluid will not give you the smoothest shifts.

One way to test your thermostat without opening the hood.. start your car on a cool night. Let it warm up. Turn the heat on full blast.. observe how hot the heat is. Now, get on the highway and go for a 20 minute drive at a consistent 60+ mph. If your heat gradually gets cooler and/or you notice your temp gauge drop quite a bit... your thermostat is bad.

Sorry for the novel... I like to be detailed! :p

[[ion] C2]

He has a V6, going by his post history.

And based on the section he posted in. Odd, wonder where I got LD9 from... lol

[TxAlero]

Thanks for the info. As of today the car has been driven probly 100Miles give or take a few with no problems. Temp gage in the middle or right under middle. (I topped off the fluids with maybe half a gallon when it first happened) I might just replace the themostat and flush the system just to be safe. 100+ degree temps here could just fry my engine if not fixed. :eek:

[zzyzzx]

I am also thinking stuck closed thermostat.

[Redog]

Something happened to me the other night on the way home from work.

Not hot or muggy out, it was midnight too

Stop at a light and the temp gauge is climbing quickly, click on the fans (I havew the Casper fan switch) and the temp gauge stops climbing, but is still around 3/4. Start driving and it drops back down to 1/4 as fast as it climbed.

In addition I'm still losing coolant, but not that much now, from the overflow bottle. I really think I got a bad bottle because it NEVER did this before with the stock bottle (which cracked) I tried the veggie oil on the threads trick and it worked for a while but it's doing it again and it's only "starting" to do it

New thermo in my future too?

[Chris2000]

Well Redog I still have a painted coolant resevoir I could try and get some of the paint off, otherwise you can try, or just deal with the paint and have a working coolant bottle. You just cant see where the level is at. I'm sure we could get the paint off tho.

[Lucalare]

use some acetone(finger nail polish remover) and scrub with a coarse sponge, that should do it.

[Chris2000]

use some acetone(finger nail polish remover) and scrub with a coarse sponge, that should do it.

Yeah, thats option #1. If that doesn't work I have plenty of other methods.

[Redog]

Well I checked the bottle at break and it's almost empty.

Fuck this, I'm buying a new bottle tomorrow, easy enought to do in work's parking lot ;)