Just was driving home in rush hour traffic that was going very slow when I noticed the temperature gauge start to rise. Within 15 seconds it was nearly in the red zone so I shut the engine down and coasted to the side of the road. Drove it to my mechanics place while turning up the heater full force on hot and nearly cooked to death! He farted around saying it might be a thermostat, bad hose... took it down the road to another place where they knew what it was after a compression test...bad head gasket. My regular mechanic (who I no longer endorse) had changed the coolant and hadn't bled the cooling system, which likely led to an air bubble in the system and overheating. Not a rare problem but not uncommon either. It runs fine now but be sure to bleed the cooling system when changing the coolant as my problem developed from this. The car is worth repairing and will likely last another dozen or more years with little drama.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
Just was driving home in rush hour traffic that was going very slow when I noticed the temperature gauge start to rise. Within 15 seconds it was nearly in the red zone so I shut the engine down and coasted to the side of the road. Drove it to my mechanics place while turning up the heater full force on hot and nearly cooked to death! He farted around saying it might be a thermostat, bad hose... took it down the road to another place where they knew what it was after a compression test...bad head gasket. My regular mechanic (who I no longer endorse) had changed the coolant and hadn't bled the cooling system, which likely led to an air bubble in the system and overheating. Not a rare problem but not uncommon either. It runs fine now but be sure to bleed the cooling system when changing the coolant as my problem developed from this. The car is worth repairing and will likely last another dozen or more years with little drama.
- kerryd, Riverton, UT, US