2001 Overheating

[soulja221]

New here..neat place, lots of info...think i'll stick around

 

Here's my issue, a few weeks ago i went out of town, left my burb parked in the driveway for 2 weeks. Came home, went to the store and on pops my message center, "check coolant temp." After i got to the store, i left the truck running, poped the hood and nothing boiling....hoses are hot but its arizona, hoses are always hot. I think there may be a fault in the system, shut her down, get my beer and head home. A week goes by of just me driving back and forth to work (avg 8 mile commute) and this light keeps coming on..so now i think it may be something other than a bug. To make matters more wierd, 2 days ago the low coolant message pops up...so i put a little coolant in. The very next day the check coolant temp comes on again and within moments i get the engine overheat message so i shut down. Wait a few hours, add a little more coolant and go home, on the ride home the check coolant temp light comes on again. So today, i go outside, pop the hood and do a visual, no coolant leaks, fuses intact. I run the burb and let her idle, within 15 minutes, temps (according to the gauge) are at 220..i pop the hood and i notice that there is more coolant in the surge tank than what there was when the engine was off. Any ideas as to whats going on here?

[Ape0r]

Is there any discoloration in the coolant reservoir?

How does the oil look?

Are there any signs of leaks anywhere? (Radiator, hoses/connections, intake, heads, water pump, etc, etc, etc)

 

At first I thought t-stat, but that wouldn't explain the loss of coolant.

[soulja221]

coolant goes look like it needs to be drained and replaced, i'll try that this weekend. Oil looks good and no signs of leaks anywhere. When the low coolant light came on, i knew something had to be wrong becaus ethere is no loss and there is plenty of coolant in there...i take it i should check the t-stat?

[soulja221]

anyone?

[asilverblazer]

You could try T-stat, with my truck coolant has away of disapearing and reapearing, so what I think is that the t-stat is sticking letting the water get too hot and pushing it out the surge tank overflow, when the engine cools down, the coolant contracts and there is the loss of coolant. 220 degrees on the gauge is high in my opinion.

[Burbman]

Also check the radiator cap, if you have one on your system. If it doesn't hold pressure, it will let coolant leak. Also, pressurizing the system raises the boiling point of the coolant. If the cap doesn't hold pressure, the coolant will get hotter faster.

 

Might also be a bad sensor. Had same issue on my daughter's '00 Grand Prix. Temp gauge was normal, but "TEMP" idiot light came on and put car into limp-home mode. Turns out sensor had two sides: one feeds the gauge, the other feeds the computer to light the idiot light and activate limp-home mode. Scan tool revealed erroneous reading being sent to computer from one side of the sensor. Car wasn't overheating, it just thought it was.

 

If flush/fill and new T-stat and cap don't resolve issue, have the PCM scanned for codes, it might be senosr-related.