Any advice would be appreciated.
When driving hard in 1st, 2nd and 3rd...etc the water temp is fine and also when I am doing up to 80mph on the motorway. But when I get close to 90/100mph the temp gauge goes up to 3/4 which is a bit worrying and as a result of this the car uses some water/coolant. When the AC is on this seems to happen even more so, any ideas??
Cheers
Dan
Mine doesn't do it on the road yet, but will overheat on a trackday.
I'm sure my radiator is partially blocked (1995 car with 117k miles).
The hot weather and constant stress of motorway driving will find its limit. Even sprinting in 3rd only lasts a few seconds.
edit - just noticed you've not been here long. If you're losing coolant, make sure you're checking the radiator (when the car isn't very hot). The level in the expansion tank is irrelevant if you have a leak. The whole system can empty itself, and the expansion tank still say max.
Last edited by Jon; 14-07-2005 at 18:40.
The rad is full and its the tank that goes down in level. There are no sign of leaks or holes. It just looses water through overheating I guess. Just wanna know why and what I can do to fix it.
Any more ideas??..
Have you checked your oil in case its the head gasket?
if you have what looks like mayonaise on the filler cap then its bad news mate
Last edited by fozzie; 14-07-2005 at 19:57.
As a guide, how much water are you losing per day ?
If none except on motorways, how much per 100miles?
The head gasket and oil are fine, no worries there.
It only looses water when doing 90mph+ maybe 0.5-1 L, over 80 miles ish.
It goes like stink though, so pressure and gaskets are OK I guess.
Dan
I'm saying semi-blocked radiator again.
Try removing it and backflushing with a hosepipe. See if any significant crud gets washed out.
I was getting identical symptoms, but yesterday i was stuck in traffic for over an hour and the temp shot right up and over the red line the it started shooting water out of the expansion tank!Originally Posted by Dantheman
I'm hoping its just a messed up radiator but how do i check that. I take it best thing to do is just to flush it out.
and the temp gauge is pretty poor too. it usually sits in the middle, almost irrespective of the car temp.
i lost half my water, and the gauge sat still and gave no warning
so if you have a little leak, don't think watching the temp gauge will warn you of impending doom
like the oil pressure light, it tells you you have a problem, when it's too late
If the rad is blocked then it would overheat all the time not just at this certain point i.e. over 90 mph.
I was on the motorway today sat at 85mph and this shit Rover 75 tried it on and I put my foot down to let him know who is boss and it just got too hot again and I had to back off allowing this 75 to come passed me.
Please help anyone
Things to check which all contributed to my overheating/water loss problem:
1, Radiator partially blocked (inside and through fins outside). I ended up fitting a new radiator to be sure. I pulled old radiator in bits and found the centre half of it completely blocked right where cooling fan is
2, Radiator cap not sealing properly (scale under rubber seal)
3, Thermostat not opening fully
4, Very small crack in turbo cooling pipe (which leaked for a while without dripping)
5, Airlock in cooling system: start engine with bleed bolt and radiator cap removed and wait for coolant to escape from bleed hole as thermostat opens. Top up radiator as required.
All this happened shortly after buying car so maybe previous owner didn't use enough coolant with corrosion inhibitor
Sounds a problem really...
I live in the south of France, temp is often around 30~35°C peaking at 40 some days, had motorway ride over 150~170km/h (more than 100mph), and never suffer of overheating.
We just aware of swapping coolant at least each 2 years, nothing more...
Hello Dantheman,
my car has been sufered exactly the same problem from about 2 months ago.
My case is worse because the overheating has appeared just when selling the car!!! (Why Murphy does not take holidays???)
As you, I can drive for hours in the city, even with AC on without overheating. Then, when crusing at 90-100 mph the temp gauge also stays at 3/4! If I turn off the AC, the temp improves a bit, but not to stop worrying.
The engineer at the rollers checked the AF mixture while light throttle and confirmed that in this situation the car goes very lean (as every other car in the world), raising the temp in the combustion chamber. This explains why my car keeps fine thrashing it at low gears (rich mixture cools down a lot). This is a normal mechanical behaviour, and obviously doesnt solve the problem at its origin.
I have changed already viscous fan and thermostat. The radiator has been checked and completely cleaned.
The car does not fill expansion bottle, so its not a problem from the rad cap.
If it were a HG failure, the coolant would be dirty, and the temp variations wouldnt be so quick (due to air boobles). If I have any water leaks, they are too small to be noticed or to be measured.
Only thing is for sure in my car is that the coolant circuit loses the required pressure by a reason we are not able to find. With atmosferic pressure, the coolant boils very quickly (just a bit further than the regular water, ie 100º).
This was my original thread http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=159884
Last edited by Spanish Dorikin; 16-07-2005 at 19:05.
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