talontsiawd
Well-Known Member
I have had never had cooling issues on any of my cars so this is new to me. A few months ago, my car would overheat in traffic so I replaced the thermostat. I didn't really think about this at the time, but I was really low on coolant. In the past, when I changed my thermostat (I have owned the car since 2003), I recall coolant coming out of the thermostat housing. The last time, no coolant and if I recall, no coolant really in the upper radiator hose when I refilled the coolant. At that point, if stuck in traffic, I could rev the engine a bit and temps went down to normal.
My car started overheating again, it was minor until today. Though I could rev the car to get my temps down, it didn't work well enough for me to get to school. I am a grad student with night classes so I didn't want to be stuck driving home at 10:00 PM so I went home. As soon as I got out of traffic, and could drive normally (with the heat up at first), temps remained normal. After my car cooled down, I found I needed to add about 1/3 gallon of water. Because I filled it about a month ago, I believe it is a leak.
What I have done before adding water. I let my car idle and get up to temp to see if my fans were working. They work fine. I then added water and my temps are fine. I went out and rented a pressure tester, it is now dark, I cannot find any obvious leaks, but the tester seamed to leak as what I heard was right at the cap area, but no coolant lost.
In addition...My car is daily driven but only has 90k on it, I don't drive much. A lot of times, if I drove a regular amount of miles, I feel I would detect these problems more easily, and also, they would likely be worse. I would not be surprised if adding more coolant (well water in this case), will be fine for 6 months or more.
What are your suggestions going forward? I have no reason to believe the coolant temp sensor is bad, but it is almost 20 years old. I do believe I was overheating because my car was running like it had no power, but no CEL came on. Still, I don't see any signs of a leak. I may be able to get a better pressure tester, or find something when it is more light out, but my garage is fairly well lit. I did smell coolant when it overheated, I don't recall that in the past when I last replaced the thermostat.
Long thread, I just need to deal with this, I understand how coolant systems work, I just haven't really worked on one, outside of my old Jaguar, outside of failed thermostats. Again, my lack of driving my car often makes me think I fixed something when I didn't.
My car started overheating again, it was minor until today. Though I could rev the car to get my temps down, it didn't work well enough for me to get to school. I am a grad student with night classes so I didn't want to be stuck driving home at 10:00 PM so I went home. As soon as I got out of traffic, and could drive normally (with the heat up at first), temps remained normal. After my car cooled down, I found I needed to add about 1/3 gallon of water. Because I filled it about a month ago, I believe it is a leak.
What I have done before adding water. I let my car idle and get up to temp to see if my fans were working. They work fine. I then added water and my temps are fine. I went out and rented a pressure tester, it is now dark, I cannot find any obvious leaks, but the tester seamed to leak as what I heard was right at the cap area, but no coolant lost.
In addition...My car is daily driven but only has 90k on it, I don't drive much. A lot of times, if I drove a regular amount of miles, I feel I would detect these problems more easily, and also, they would likely be worse. I would not be surprised if adding more coolant (well water in this case), will be fine for 6 months or more.
What are your suggestions going forward? I have no reason to believe the coolant temp sensor is bad, but it is almost 20 years old. I do believe I was overheating because my car was running like it had no power, but no CEL came on. Still, I don't see any signs of a leak. I may be able to get a better pressure tester, or find something when it is more light out, but my garage is fairly well lit. I did smell coolant when it overheated, I don't recall that in the past when I last replaced the thermostat.
Long thread, I just need to deal with this, I understand how coolant systems work, I just haven't really worked on one, outside of my old Jaguar, outside of failed thermostats. Again, my lack of driving my car often makes me think I fixed something when I didn't.