Engine Overheating Problem Options

[hzdjj]

Hi everyone, I'm really new here... Thanks in advance for reading my post!

I have been owning a 00 GS 5 speed for 2 years. Not in great shape, damaged the front bumper cover by myself, changed battery, etc...

I recently had a problem with engine overheating. It happens when you are running at idle speed. My cabin heating is also blowing out chilly (I turned it to hottest) wind. The radiator fan is working... This will all go away, rather quickly (in about 5-10 seconds..) just by pressing the gas to let the engine revolve faster, say 2000rpm... I had one of my friends who knew cars a lot, looked at it. He told me that it shouldn't be that serious a problem. Maybe it's just partial overheating, maybe I need to change my coolant temperature sensor, or I need to flush my radiator and change the coolant (I didn't change it for two years.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) ) Can anyone give any suggestions or comments on where the problem might be? My feeling is that the whole cooling system is a bit dirty, so maybe I need a flush?

Thank you all in advance!!

[Az3g]

thermostat is my first guess

[hzdjj]

Thanks for your response! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I was still wondering that, if thermostat is causing the problem, the heater should still work, shouldn't it? Apparently my heater is also bad when running idle...

[carley1199]

+1 on the thermostat...I just recently change mine, I did it cuz the lower radiator hose is bad so I did my entire cooling system flush, thermostat, lower and upper radiator hoses.

[Az3g]

ya, do your thermostat and obviously use new coolant when you refill the system. do you know how to properly bleed the air from the coolant system? a lot of people do whatever work they need to do then screw this part up and the car runs like crap. let me know and Ill explain.

[hzdjj]

It's been long and I haven't got a chance to work on my car... I was having some feeling that the rust deposit in my cooling system may have caused this problem. The main argument is that if it's the thermostat, the heater would have worked in idle, but apparently my heater is cold when idle as well, which suggests that the coolant may have not been circulating through the heater core. Therefore, there must have been some other resistance that's within the engine circulation or maybe at some hose connection. I'm suspecting the rust deposit?

I was wondering if I could do a system flush first with some flush fluid, and change the coolant, see if this problem disappears... any suggestions ??? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush-anim-cl.gif)

(Wel, actually I didn't have a proper tool to enable me to reach my thermostat... I plan to get them in thanksgiving, but I don't want to wait and am worried a bit about this overheating... so I wanted to give it a shot now or pretty soon... )

Any suggestions comments, greatly appreciated!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laughing.gif)

[roughneckeyad]

Your engine is heating at idle because your water pump is not pumping enough coolant to keep up with the engine heating. Doesnt mean your pump is bad, it means it might be going bad OR... you have low coolant level, or an air bubble in the system, to fix that..., when the engine is cold or slightly but not VERY HOT.. take that small cover on your radiator, and turn the engine on and see the bubbles leave the system, keep pouring coolant until its full and until no bubbles show up. It will fix it.
The thermostat might be a problem too, BUT, since ur problems goes away when you press on gas (high rpm) means its related to the circulation of the fluid and not the functionality of your thermostat..
Try that.. or just flush ur whole system, it'l fix it.

[hzdjj]

Thank you! Will try.... Can I use Dexcool for my coolant? They are red, so I'm not sure...

Your engine is heating at idle because your water pump is not pumping enough coolant to keep up with the engine heating. Doesnt mean your pump is bad, it means it might be going bad OR... you have low coolant level, or an air bubble in the system, to fix that..., when the engine is cold or slightly but not VERY HOT.. take that small cover on your radiator, and turn the engine on and see the bubbles leave the system, keep pouring coolant until its full and until no bubbles show up. It will fix it.
The thermostat might be a problem too, BUT, since ur problems goes away when you press on gas (high rpm) means its related to the circulation of the fluid and not the functionality of your thermostat..
Try that.. or just flush ur whole system, it'l fix it.

[Az3g]

Thank you! Will try.... Can I use Dexcool for my coolant? They are red, so I'm not sure...

only if you fush the system extremly well. thy cannot be mixed.

[hzdjj]

yeah... I have heard of that, but I was not sure about the exact consequence of mixing... Willl that just be a compromise on the life of the new coolant? Or will that cause serious damage...

only if you fush the system extremly well. thy cannot be mixed.

[hzdjj]

I think I'll give up with the Dex cool, and go with the original coolant... is the eclipse just using the traditional green? Any recommendation on specific brands?

(Actually, I somehow observed blue in the overfill tank and green in the radiator... not sure if this is normal, maybe I just interpreted the color... )

Thanks!

yeah... I have heard of that, but I was not sure about the exact consequence of mixing... Willl that just be a compromise on the life of the new coolant? Or will that cause serious damage...

[hzdjj]

I just opened my radiator cap and didn't see any liquid....... I saw the holes where the liquid is supposed to flow down... Does it mean this is the cause? Am I supposed to see the "water" almost reaching the cap? ...

I thought my coolant level was fine because the overfill tank was reading good... so does this suggest that we should not always rely on the overfill reservoir? How ridiculous, I should have checked the radiator...

[Az3g]

I just opened my radiator cap and didn't see any liquid....... I saw the holes where the liquid is supposed to flow down... Does it mean this is the cause? Am I supposed to see the "water" almost reaching the cap? ...

I thought my coolant level was fine because the overfill tank was reading good... so does this suggest that we should not always rely on the overfill reservoir? How ridiculous, I should have checked the radiator...

yes, use green cuz mixing the two will turn it into mud and fill your engine with it ruining the entier thing. and fill your radiator then the resivor. that was probably your problem in the first place.

[SRSONE]

do not use dexcool at all ..unless u flush every little bit of the green coolant completely out of the whole entire system...
they do not mix at all!!...i have seen it turn a nice goo and clog the system...
normal green coolant is all u need...

the radiator should be full to the rad cap...fill it with the car running and wait until all the bubbles stop..if they dont stop or the coolant gets pushed out of the radiator...u may have a bad head gasket...napa sells a tester for that...

the overflow means just that...as water heats up it expands ....the overflow bottle gives it someplace to go...

[roughneckeyad]

I doubt he has a bad head gasket.. his exhaust would fume like a bitch and his oil would be milky.

[SRSONE]

if it was really bad maybe...but just a little and it might not...

[a1amap]

I have a similar problem with my eclipse the only difference is mine does not overheat.
Your car is overheating because the coolant is empty. Mine I would top off regularly and did not have overheating problems.

Mine blows cool air at idol with the heater on. When I accelerate the air turns warm. (not hot)

About 4 months ago I flushed the heater coil and the radiator. I replaced with fresh fluid and I had the hottest air coming out of my heater at idol or upon acceleration.

This lasted for 3 months and I still have to regularly add fluid to the system. I have a leak in the cooling system (probably the heater coil). You probably do too. I have been too lazy to have the system pressure tested to determine the source of the leak. The problem with this is I can add all the coolant I want it will keep the engine cool but with out flushing there is no way to move the air that's trapped in the heater coil. I will get it fixed soon but I don't use the heater for heat but to defrost the windows.

[Az3g]

I have a similar problem with my eclipse the only difference is mine does not overheat.
Your car is overheating because the coolant is empty. Mine I would top off regularly and did not have overheating problems.

Mine blows cool air at idol with the heater on. When I accelerate the air turns warm. (not hot)

About 4 months ago I flushed the heater coil and the radiator. I replaced with fresh fluid and I had the hottest air coming out of my heater at idol or upon acceleration.

This lasted for 3 months and I still have to regularly add fluid to the system. I have a leak in the cooling system (probably the heater coil). You probably do too. I have been too lazy to have the system pressure tested to determine the source of the leak. The problem with this is I can add all the coolant I want it will keep the engine cool but with out flushing there is no way to move the air that's trapped in the heater coil. I will get it fixed soon but I don't use the heater for heat but to defrost the windows.

you can get the air out by running the heater while you fill the system.

[hzdjj]

Hi everyone, finally I had some time to work on my car...

Just as Az3g pointed out, not enough coolant seemed to be my problem in the first place. And once I topped off the radiator the problem was gone. I also flushed the system. I don't have flush kit so I just let the fluid run inside and then run the pure water several times, before I finally filled in the coolant.

Then also as a1amap said, I located a leak in the cooling system. It seemed to be related to the heater core or somewhere in the heating. What I found was the water starts to drip when I flush the system, and the position of dripping is somewhere underneath the heater part... so it's not any of the radiator hose or the engine block and its attached the hose, it's deep inside the heater system... So i guess if I wanted to completely fix it I needed to bring it to the shop right? In order to access the heater core I think I need to remove the whole front panel right? And probably this is not an easy job for newbie DIYers...? Also, I noticed that this leak may be minor as sometimes it dripps, but the other time it doesn't... so I was wondering......... if I could use any stop leak product, like the prestone one? Does anybody have any experience with that? I appreciate any suggestions (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I also have a couple question regarding the coolant. Following everyone's advice, I didn't use Dex-cool but got the green Peak. However, after I refilled the cooling system, I figured out that the one I have is the Peak extended life, which is non-silicated, though green. I was wondering if that would do anything bad? I flushed my cooling system multiple times with pure water, so the amount of the original coolant is small.

The other question is a general question regarding mixing the coolant with water... when you guys flush your cooling system, there's gonna be water (or water mixed with a little bit amount of coolant after flushing the system many times) left in the system before you refill, and that water amount might be a lot. In my case I estimated about half of the water cannot be drained out. So... if I fill the system with 50/50 premix, wouldn't that be diluted by the water inside, and make it significantly less than 50%? In my case, I did some math, and tried to mix the coolant with more than 50%, so once it got diluted, it will be approximately 50, but god who knows...

Again thanks for everybody's suggestions!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/liebe011.gif)

[Az3g]

Hi everyone, finally I had some time to work on my car...

Just as Az3g pointed out, not enough coolant seemed to be my problem in the first place. And once I topped off the radiator the problem was gone. I also flushed the system. I don't have flush kit so I just let the fluid run inside and then run the pure water several times, before I finally filled in the coolant.

Then also as a1amap said, I located a leak in the cooling system. It seemed to be related to the heater core or somewhere in the heating. What I found was the water starts to drip when I flush the system, and the position of dripping is somewhere underneath the heater part... so it's not any of the radiator hose or the engine block and its attached the hose, it's deep inside the heater system... So i guess if I wanted to completely fix it I needed to bring it to the shop right? In order to access the heater core I think I need to remove the whole front panel right? And probably this is not an easy job for newbie DIYers...? Also, I noticed that this leak may be minor as sometimes it dripps, but the other time it doesn't... so I was wondering......... if I could use any stop leak product, like the prestone one? Does anybody have any experience with that? I appreciate any suggestions (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I also have a couple question regarding the coolant. Following everyone's advice, I didn't use Dex-cool but got the green Peak. However, after I refilled the cooling system, I figured out that the one I have is the Peak extended life, which is non-silicated, though green. I was wondering if that would do anything bad? I flushed my cooling system multiple times with pure water, so the amount of the original coolant is small.

The other question is a general question regarding mixing the coolant with water... when you guys flush your cooling system, there's gonna be water (or water mixed with a little bit amount of coolant after flushing the system many times) left in the system before you refill, and that water amount might be a lot. In my case I estimated about half of the water cannot be drained out. So... if I fill the system with 50/50 premix, wouldn't that be diluted by the water inside, and make it significantly less than 50%? In my case, I did some math, and tried to mix the coolant with more than 50%, so once it got diluted, it will be approximately 50, but god who knows...

Again thanks for everybody's suggestions!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/liebe011.gif)

green is green. it wont hurt anything. its all just advertised junk. and the mixture does not have to be 50/50 exactly. it will be fine. running more water is actually better if youe in a hot area. so it wont hurt anything.