Sister Overheating?

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badbolr

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My sister bought a Mk VIII last month. Her's is now having a heat problem.... No coolant leaks, but low coolant found. Added fluid, level has been okay 7 days. Temp needle keeps spiking up to red, but control system says temp okay. Anyone ever heard of this? Dealer says she did not have an air bubble, nor can they see leaks. Think the guage may be bad?? Just today she said the needle spiked and for the first time the control system said temp overheating too. Anyone know what the heck could be going on?

THanks
 
I would tell her to not run the car any longer and find out what the problem is and fix it asap. It might be bad water pump or bad t-stat and not something more serious.
 
Especially with the older Marks, 93-95 for instance, those radiators are getting pretty old. So it could be a blocked radiator. We have great hi-draw fans on the car but there are problems with the motors going out. In fact, a working Mark VIII fan motor and blade is a hot ticket (pardun the pun) on the used market. Si in addition to the thermostat and water pump, you may want to check for either coolant in the oil (you can do that when you change the oil) or have someone stick a sniffer up the 'ol tailpipe to smell for coolant.

Head gasket leaks on these cars start out small because we have the ringed head gaskets that sometimes collapse and let fluid directly into the cylinder. You can check for that by pulling the plugs and changing them and looking for 1 plug that is whiter than the others. That would indicated the coolant is entering the combustion chamber and cleaning the insulator on the plug. I would do each of these things, starting with the easiest and cheapest. Fan On/Off function with Air conditioning cycling, oil change, pipe sniff, plug change, coolant flush, thermostat replacement, water pump, etc. Good Luck.
 
Very rare for a temp guage to indicate overheating when it is actually not.

Suspect the thermostat if the car seems to overheat once early in the drive cycle. Not necessarily every time but almost always at the same time early in the drive cycle.

If it is after the thermostat has obviously opened, and randomly appears/disappears thereafter, suspect an air bubble in the cooling system.

If it overheats predominantly under load and can be kept cool by modifying your driving, suspect water pump or clogged radiator.

The inexplicable loss of antifreeze over time is a leak. The next question is internal or external. Internal through the headgaskets into the combustion chamber can be determined by exhaust gas analysis(or smell in extreme cases). External leaks can be very difficult to determine at times, especially small ones. The antifreeze can evaporate before it can be located. A special dye can be utilized with a black light for the sneaky leaks.
 
I had that happen to me and it turned out to be just air bubbles in the coolant. I had the shop that did the coolant flush fill it back up and the problem went away. Luckily I had only gone half a mile from the shop before I turned around and went back b/c the needle was over the halfway mark.
 
Hi there. I'm the sister in question. Thanks for the help. My Mark is at the dealer and I'm still waiting on the diagnosis. The part that seems oddest to me is that the first few times the needle went up, it came right back down. And every time it spikes, if you hit the "system check" for the engine temp, it says it's okay, even yesterday when it went up and stayed up and flashed the "check engine temp" message -- system check said the engine temp was okay.

So hopefully I'll know shortly. I'll let you guys know what they say it is.
 
system checker always says everything is ok....lol. but honestly i had the same problem on 3 different occasions i noticed the needle was well above the redline, then i saw the message center tell me "check engine temp". so i think the needle has to reach a certain level so to speak to kick in the message. but i solved my problem with a newer and cooler t-stat. but i hope its something stupid good luck!
 
Okay, so the dealer says her radiator and reservoir are cracked! This is the same dealer whom she paid $100 to do a check of the vehicle prior to purchase. Now to me, I say they didn't bleed the system, it got hot and then [if it is really cracked] the radiator damage occured! Should they have seen a cracked radiator during the veh inspection? If cracked, shouldn't my sister have clearly seen fluid on the ground? This smells to me...
 
Most likely they did a pressure test. Perhaps with a dye? They probably had no reason to suspect the cooling system before and I highly doubt they would've pressure tested the cooling system for a pre-sale inspection.
 
badbolr said:
Okay, so the dealer says her radiator and reservoir are cracked! This is the same dealer whom she paid $100 to do a check of the vehicle prior to purchase. Now to me, I say they didn't bleed the system, it got hot and then [if it is really cracked] the radiator damage occured! Should they have seen a cracked radiator during the veh inspection? If cracked, shouldn't my sister have clearly seen fluid on the ground? This smells to me...
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If she paid $100 for a safety inspection that the dealer has to provide anyway, that is one thing I wouldn't be too happy about. We would need to know what services were to be performed specifically for the $100 fee. Unless it mentioned 'pressure-test' cooling system, I doubt, as does JP that the dealer would volunteer to perform that test on their own. They may have also overpressurized the system and cracked your radiator and reservoir and that would suck as well. We need more info. So they said a new radiator and reservoir will fix the problem?
 
There's nothing on the inspection paperwork that says "pressure test." Their note regarding the cooling system was that they suspected I'd need to replace the hoses at some point because rust had gotten into my system, and that I needed a coolant flush. I opted to get the flush and wait on the hoses since that's an $800 job. Did not have any problems until after the flush was done.

Also, this is not the dealer I bought the Mark from. It's the other dealer I took it to for a prepurchase inspection.

But, yes, they claim that replacing the radiator and reservoir will fix the problem. My warranty place is arguing over the thermostat, which they also want to switch, so I'm still waiting to actually get them going on the repairs.

Seriously, does anyone have an LA area mechanic they just adore and trust? Because this dealership has not impressed me at all.
 
lamarkviii said:
There's nothing on the inspection paperwork that says "pressure test." Their note regarding the cooling system was that they suspected I'd need to replace the hoses at some point because rust had gotten into my system, and that I needed a coolant flush. I opted to get the flush and wait on the hoses since that's an $800 job. Did not have any problems until after the flush was done.

Also, this is not the dealer I bought the Mark from. It's the other dealer I took it to for a prepurchase inspection.

But, yes, they claim that replacing the radiator and reservoir will fix the problem. My warranty place is arguing over the thermostat, which they also want to switch, so I'm still waiting to actually get them going on the repairs.

Seriously, does anyone have an LA area mechanic they just adore and trust? Because this dealership has not impressed me at all.
Click to expand...


I would just buy a new thermostat to be done with it. I recently replaced my radiator all hoses and the thermostat, and it was amazing how much cooler the engine ran. I soked the housing in CLR and cleaned out some deposits that had accumulated, so I can imagine the radiator had some as well. This is a job you can do your self with common tools. I got the radiator from Radiator Barn ($113.00) and hoses from Max for another $50.00(?).
 
I told them to do the thermostat even though the warranty won't cover it. Not worth it to me to have to go back in here again, since I'm already out my car a second day because they can't get the reservoir tank till tomorrow.

The $800 was like $325 for all the hoses and the rest was labor -- which is insane to me, but I'm completely nonmechanical, so just checking my oil myself is an accomplishment (no matter how stereotypical that makes me, it's just true). So anyway, now I have to go rent a car, which, thankfully, is also warranty covered.
 
lamarkviii said:
...The $800 was like $325 for all the hoses and the rest was labor -- which is insane to me, ...
Click to expand...

Me too! :eek2:

For that kind of moola, I had the entire front end of my '93 rebuilt!
 
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