At very random times my car begins to over-heat and the fan kicks in close to the next bold dash after 195 degrees and the engine cools back down and its fine. One time it was leaking anti-freeze, but theres no crack in the radiator as far as weve found. i replaced the thermostat because we thought it was sticking. and that fixed it for a couple weeks but now its doing it again. any thoughts on what it is? im wondering if my fan isnt working properly and isnt cooling the engine off at the proper temperature and is just waiting till the car gets hotter? or something? hasnt been leaking anything. any ideas? anyone had anything similar happen?

gaskets checked?




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which? how would that cause it to over heat? im new at this and still learning about the engine.

I had the same problem and i just changed my engine coolant and it went away after a week

me coolant is fine and its weird because my car over heated then was fine for a week, then over heated twice, we chagned the thermostat and was fine for 2 weeks and then it did it 2 times in the last 2 days.... so its weird. and i dont mean over heating to the point where i have to shut it off, just goes up quite a bit then cools down again while driving..

just make sure and stay away from Dex Cool.




I was a retard, and now I'm permanently banned.

I had the exact thing happen to both my 84 thunderbird (3.8L, happened twice) and my 92 explorer (4L). At random times it would overheat a bit (the needle rose fairly quickly), but then cooled off rapidly. I'd check the coolant level and every 3-5 tanks it would be low a little, but nothing was leaking that I could find. Once in a while I could smell antifreeze inside, but the heater cores weren't leaking either. These symptoms lasted 4-8 months (for both vehicles) before I found out the problem was caused by cracked heads (head gaskets would probably have the same symptoms). In fact, my t-bird was very sporadic - it was losing a bit of antifreeze and smelled for about 3 days, but was perfectly fine for the next 3 months until just before it completely went. The mechanics who worked on it said that it likely started out as tiny micro-fractures in the head(thanks ford for putting thin aluminum heads on an iron block!) that periodically expanded and opened (due to heat of course). Eventually the heads failed entirely, the tempurature guage flew towards meltdown and I got a nice thick cloud coming out the exhaust. The first time it did that in my T-bird I was lucky enough to not cook the engine, and simply replaced the head and gaskets. When my X did it, I wasn't so lucky and it cost $3000 to put a rebuilt engine in.
If it was me, I'd pull the head, mag-flux it for cracks and/or at least change the head gasket. I hope that I'm wrong and that somebody else on here has an explanation that is far less costly than a cracked head or head gasket. In any case, best of luck!

if it goes to the 3/4 mark on the gauge then cools down , i dont see a problem

if you heard the fan come on that means you musta been sitting still , and when sitting still you have no air going through the radiator to help cool things

which means its normal


now if it boiled over , then you might have a problem some where , or the t-stat got something caught in it for a brief moment

^^^ Agrees. I thought mine was acting up as well and had it checked. What you described is perfectly normal. The 195 mark (err, mid way mark on the gauge) is normal when air is moving through the radiator. I think the fan is supposed to kick on at 212 or 222...something like that. As long as your fan does come on and cools the car off, you have nothing to worry about.

Why staying away from Dexcool?? it suck? And yes a head gasket will cause overheating, one of my friend had to change it on his sister 96 sunfire..

If the head gasket was gone, wouldnt that cause oil to leak into my radiator fluid? thats what happened on my mans civic. And my radiator fluid is clean.

Probably something else, I'll try to get some info...

thanks cuz my only thought is the fan isnt working properly and just is only going on when the engine gets warmer then its supposed to (atleast sometimes).. i really appreciate it.

Damn Ive had this problem for 3 years now... taken it numerous times to the auto shop and they cant find ne thing wrong.. well so they say.. When mine happens im usually cruising around idle speed during busy traffic.. Also it happens during parade's. I have noticed when i put my climate controls on Bi-Polar (head and Feat) and turn the temp on heat that it helps a little. At least it keeps it from completely overheating. Plus I have the bad antifreeze smell thru my vents.. So... idk.. I dont wanna fix it if its not going to be easy.. just b/c im planning on putting a new engine in the cavy this winter..

My guess would be the head gasket but idk..

TwiZtiD CaVy wrote:When mine happens im usually cruising around idle speed during busy traffic.. Also it happens during parade's.

Exactly. As by design. Not enough air moves over the radiator, the engine gets warm, the fan kicks on, the engine cools back off. Exactly how it is supposed to work.

TwiZtiD CaVy wrote:Plus I have the bad antifreeze smell thru my vents.

You just described a leaky heater core, not a bad radiator fan.

yea ive noticed it happens more so when im in the city. and it never completly over heats. and i only dont think its the head gasket because there is no coolant leaking anywhere and theres no oil in the coolant. leaves me lost

most of the time happens when im driving at normal speeds though

haha when i say it runs hot it RUNS HOT!! im talking its like barely touching red.. but never seems to completly overheat... when i pop the hood and check ou the engine its so hot it hurts to touch the hood prop... Its not just like the needle is 3/4 the way its pretty much tached out... i still have yet to find out the problem.. kinda annoying.. ya know

mine starting doing this about 3months back, but I haven't given a rats arse about it......still dont care about it after reading this because its obvious the engine,fan, and coolant are just doing their jobs...

will be switching off to a copper head gasket soon though in prep for more spray!


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all cavs do it 2.2, and 2.4's alike. its normal if it goes redline stop the car get it checked

Da Ghost (Qc) wrote:Why staying away from Dexcool?? it suck? And yes a head gasket will cause overheating, one of my friend had to change it on his sister 96 sunfire..

because dexcool has always made my car overheat, as well as many other people i know. i run prestone lowtox now and it works wonderful




I was a retard, and now I'm permanently banned.

Yeah dexcool isn't the best, just the rec. for our rides. However, I also add in some water wetter to my mix and that seems to help out a lot given its only 7 bucks for a bottle. That might be an option.


I'll have a sig someday....................

Mine started overheating this morning. First the low coolant light came on then the needle slowly rose near the red. I stopped for a while to let the engine cool and checked the coolant level. All seemed well, the light went off. Until I started driving again. 10 minutes later the light came on an the needle was hitting the red and "check gauges" light started flashing. I immediately pulled over and turned the car off! I waited about 50 minutes and made it to an auto parts store and grabbed the ever popular Dex-Cool. I added a little to the surge tank. I then took it to the dealer. On the way there I didn't have bad overheating. The needle did go over the half-way mark and the light came on periodically. I thought I smelled coolant (could've been paranoia). Unfortunately, I had the leave my car there cause they're booked. Luckily, It's under warranty & won't cost me anything(I bought it last week, used). I just hope I didn't toast the head gasket or anything too serious. It only has 31,000 miles on it!

Peace Out!

I cracked the heads on my old t-bird twice and my X once, and not once did I have oil in the antifreeze. I also couldn't see any water in the oil before either vehicle imploded (however, I could after). Nothing leaked (I tore the dashes out of both vehicles and neither cores had any leaks, water pumps were A-OK, hoses weren't leaking), but every few tanks it would be myteriously low. In one instance during the winter I was convinced that I could smell antifreeze in the exhaust, but when my brother came down to give me a second opinion the smell was gone. The same went for the smell that was coming through the vents - very sporadic, but whatever it was it left a thin film on the inside of my windshield that was sweet to taste and hard to remove. I was at a total loss until things exploded several months later. I can't be 100% sure that the symptoms my car had were related to the heads/HG cracking, but the end result was the same in all cases.
I hope that you just have something simple like a sticking thermostat, and that you didn't cook your engine. Blown heads/head gaskets truly suck!

Update, After crapping myself all night waiting to hear from the garage. I got the call that everything was cool (no pun intended). I guess I was low on coolant so they did a pressure test on the surge tank and filled it up. For the last three days it's been fine.
Keepin' the fingers crossed!

Spotabee Racing, Is prestone lowtox o.k./ better to use??

Later yall!