severe overheating... any ideas?

BlairB

BlairB

New member
Well I was recently driving my t4r pretty hard while in hungry valley, i adventured off the trail and charged around in the hills for awhile and then when i was about to enter back on the trail I realized that my car was running REALLY hot.

Usually when I check, the temp my car is running is basically perfectly in in the middle of the gauge, but when I looked this time it was actually as high as the gauge would go.

I got out of the car and opened the hood to find it boiling over, and shut the car down. I checked all around the radiator, and there was no obstruction or problem whatsoever. I waited a few minutes for it to cool slightly, and then started driving again and over the next 10 minutes the temp dropped unbelievably quickly, until it was back to being totally normal. I have driven my car just as hard before and never had this problem

It's a 2008 with less than 6,000 miles on it, so it was very weird to have the car go from overheating and back to normal in the blink of an eye. Any ideas on what could have happened?
 
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that was my thought at first too, but fact boiling over showed it was overheating. I popped the hood once it was back to a normal temp and the overheating had stopped and everything just seemed cooler...

Another thing that I forgot to mention was that the air conditioning stopped working just prior to the car overheating
 
Ah... Perhaps an improperly secured or bad radiator cap. If you were at elevation the temp to boil goes down. Once it starts boiling it can't pump etc...
 
I checked the radiator cap and there was no problem there, also there was not a major elevation change.
 
BlairB said:
I checked the radiator cap and there was no problem there, also there was not a major elevation change.
Click to expand...
Ok, I'm back to my original "x3" on teh t-stat.
 
But I don't believe that problem would cause for it to boil over, correct me if I am wrong.

When I got under my car I realized that it was boiling over and there was pink coolant everywhere. My first thought was I put a hole somewhere in the coolant system for that much to be leaking, but after a really thorough inspection I realized that I had not. The coolant was boiling out of the small rubber hose that leads out of the overflow tank.

If it was just a bad thermostat I do not see why it would cause the coolant to heat to such a temperature that it would be boiling out?
 
BlairB said:
But I don't believe that problem would cause for it to boil over, correct me if I am wrong.

When I got under my car I realized that it was boiling over and there was pink coolant everywhere. My first thought was I put a hole somewhere in the coolant system for that much to be leaking, but after a really thorough inspection I realized that I had not. The coolant was boiling out of the small rubber hose that leads out of the overflow tank.

If it was just a bad thermostat I do not see why it would cause the coolant to heat to such a temperature that it would be boiling out?
Click to expand...

It could... If the coolant (and overflow bottle) levels were full at the beginning of the 'episode' and the t-stat stuck in the shut position the coolant would heat and expand beyond the capacity of the overflow bottle.

I have seen them stick and free themselves again as I suspect yours did.
 
BlairB said:
But I don't believe that problem would cause for it to boil over, correct me if I am wrong.

When I got under my car I realized that it was boiling over and there was pink coolant everywhere. My first thought was I put a hole somewhere in the coolant system for that much to be leaking, but after a really thorough inspection I realized that I had not. The coolant was boiling out of the small rubber hose that leads out of the overflow tank.

If it was just a bad thermostat I do not see why it would cause the coolant to heat to such a temperature that it would be boiling out?
Click to expand...
The thermostat controls coolant flow by blocking or unblocking the water passage into the top of the radiator. If the thermostat were to stick in the closed position no water could flow through the engine. This is the normal cold start condition which is designed to bring the engine to operating temperature quickly. When coolant reaches the threshold temperature of the thermostat it opens unblocking the passage. By opening and closing in this way the thermostat keeps the temperature at a fairly constant level however if it never opens the water is no longer cooled by passing through the radiator and just gets hotter and hotter.
 
Does anybody know why this thermostat could stick open? Could it be a certain angle the car was at or what?
 
BlairB said:
Does anybody know why this thermostat could stick open? Could it be a certain angle the car was at or what?
Click to expand...
Sometimes they get bent during installation or sealer gets on them. It's very unusual for them to be bad brand new because of the simplicity of the design. But it does happen.
 
BlairB said:
would this problem be ongoing and constant? or just pop up randomly?
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Frankly there is no way for me to know. It may never happen again, or just on occasion. But if it happens again replace it.
 
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Take it to the stealer and demand a t-stat replacement. Although they're probably going to tell you there are no problems, and nothing needs to be fixed.

It's too new to be running into problems. I would be pissed if it happened to me @ 6000K.
 
I would just go out and buy a new thermostat and replace it myself. It's cheap and easy to do, and since it is the most likely cause, consider it "insurance" against having it happen again.

BTW, you can cause damage to your engine by overheating it, so try to keep a close eye on that temperature guage.
 
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