Post by aaa96 on Nov 10, 2018 22:16:08 GMT -6
Driving home from dinner (about 20 miles or so), driving pretty well 60-70 mph the whole way (all highway driving for the most part). The engine temperature maintained around the 200 degree mark or below until about the 19 mile mark in the trip.
The engine computer warned that the engine was hot and A/C off.
I cranked the heat right away as I was coming to a left turn intersection, slowing down and the temperature started to drop, back to below the 200 mark. As soon as I pulled into my garage, I decided to idle for a bit, and give it some revs to see what happened. The temp climbed a little bit after idling and cranking the A/C to give it some load, but not too much and just enough to be in the margin of error (being idle, no air flowing over radiator).
Anyway I popped the hood, and it looks like it puked engine coolant from the return line into the overflow tank again (this happened once when I test drove the vehicle and asked the guy to do some hard acceleration pulls), and this time it occurred just shortly after I overtook someone on the highway.
When I had the car in the shop to be looked over by my mechanic, he made mention that the coolant is a little bit dirty and could probably use a flush. I'm operating under the assumption that there could be some air in the cooling system that needs to be bled out, either that or the thermostat could be sticking which I think could cause excess pressure to build up and either the pressure exceeds the rating on the reservoir cap, or enough to puke out of the lines to the overflow but not enough to pop the cap.
Either way, I'm gonna take it a little bit easy and wait to get the vehicle back into the mechanic (he was too busy to perform any work outside of a full inspection). I'll get the existing fluid tested to see if there's any exhaust leaking into it which would be an early warning sign for head gasket failure being imminent. I'll probably get him to replace the water pump as well as the thermostat to be on the safe side.
I really hope it's not the head gaskets, because that's an engine out job.
The engine computer warned that the engine was hot and A/C off.
I cranked the heat right away as I was coming to a left turn intersection, slowing down and the temperature started to drop, back to below the 200 mark. As soon as I pulled into my garage, I decided to idle for a bit, and give it some revs to see what happened. The temp climbed a little bit after idling and cranking the A/C to give it some load, but not too much and just enough to be in the margin of error (being idle, no air flowing over radiator).
Anyway I popped the hood, and it looks like it puked engine coolant from the return line into the overflow tank again (this happened once when I test drove the vehicle and asked the guy to do some hard acceleration pulls), and this time it occurred just shortly after I overtook someone on the highway.
When I had the car in the shop to be looked over by my mechanic, he made mention that the coolant is a little bit dirty and could probably use a flush. I'm operating under the assumption that there could be some air in the cooling system that needs to be bled out, either that or the thermostat could be sticking which I think could cause excess pressure to build up and either the pressure exceeds the rating on the reservoir cap, or enough to puke out of the lines to the overflow but not enough to pop the cap.
Either way, I'm gonna take it a little bit easy and wait to get the vehicle back into the mechanic (he was too busy to perform any work outside of a full inspection). I'll get the existing fluid tested to see if there's any exhaust leaking into it which would be an early warning sign for head gasket failure being imminent. I'll probably get him to replace the water pump as well as the thermostat to be on the safe side.
I really hope it's not the head gaskets, because that's an engine out job.