running hot?

Hi,

I have a 1997 Grand Am. It has about 140,000 miles on it. I've had to have numerous repairs done (I know nothing about cars). I've had to have 3 alternators, 2 batteries, 3 air compressors, water pump, heater core and most recently the thermostat.

The water pump was replaced 2 years ago. The thermost about 2 weeks now. I've been having this problem with it running hot. Actually, it WAS kind of fluctuating, and that part stopped with the new thermostat. But, when I'm out on the highway, I have no problems. The a/c works fine also. I don't even have that much problems when I drive through town. But, when I'm sitting (no a/c on or anything) idle anywhere, the gauge will move up quickly towards being hot. If I'm running errands, I stop the car, when I start it back up, it's way up towards hot again. Once I get back out on the road it does fine.

Any ideas on what I might try? I drive alot for work and have to transport kids. Don't want to end up on the side of the road with them :)

Thanks for any help.

It looks like your water pump is about to go again but hopefully it is just the cooling system that needs flushing and new radiator cap. You might have to rig up and install a manual overide of the radiator fan so you can turn the fan manually while driving the in the city stop and go.

I would recommend its time to do hands on with your vehicle. If you are willing to learn about your vehicle, the less likely you will be ripped off.

Flush your cooling system.
Do you have the orange color coolant or the green color coolant? Get the right color for your new coolant replacement $6 each (3 or 4 of them). Get a coolant flush solution $4. Fluid drip pan.

Drain the coolant from the radiator drain plug, open the radiator cap to drain it faster.
Close the drain plug and put water in the radiator until full (I would suggest to use a water gallon so you can measure how many gallons it takes to fill the radiator) and put back the radiator cap. Start the vehicle for 10-15 minutes (you might want to select the heater and fan blower to max) and turn off the engine. Drain the cooling fluid and open the radiator cap.

Close the drain plug and pour the Cooling Flush solution and then fill the radiator with water and close the radiator cap. Start the vehicle for 10-15 minutes (you might want to select the heater and fan blower to max) and turn off the engine. Drain the cooling fluid and open the radiator cap.

Close the drain plug and fill the radiator with water and close the radiator cap. Start the vehicle for 10-15 minutes (you might want to select the heater and fan blower to max) and turn off the engine. Drain the cooling fluid and open the radiator cap.

Close the drain plug. Now, remember how many gallons it took to fill the radiator when filling up. Check your manual on how many total gallons of coolant it takes to fill the whole cooling system. Draining does not drain the whole cooling fluid and that is why it's important to know how many gallons it take to fill the radiator.
Example, if it takes 4.5 gallons to fill the radiator after it was drained and if the book states that it takes 6 gallons to fill the whole cooling systems with fluid, we know that it has 1.5 gallons of water still left in the cooling system even after draining it.
We want to have 70% coolant and 30% water.
30% of 6 gallons is 1.8 gallons of water.
70% of 6 gallons is 4.2 gallons of coolant.
If 1.5 gallons of water is left in the cooling systems, then we just need 0.3 gallons of water added and then 4.2 gallons of coolant.

his fan may not be working either, he says he runds fine while hes cruising so fan is a good place to look too

Thanks so much for responding. I was told when I had the car serviced last that it's got the wrong coolant in it. It has the green stuff right now.

Slade, I'm going to print out your instructions and I'm going to visit my parents this weekend and am going to see if my dad can help with the flushing thing. He's not normally very mechanical either, but might try it if he has instructions that specific.

I'm a single woman and with my limited knowledge, I'm sure that I've probably gotten taken advantage of in the past regarding my car. I've kind of bounced around to different mechanics, wherever the thing breaks down on me. lol But, with the most recent fix, I think I finally found one that I like.

Do you happen to know how to take the radio out? That's one other thing on my agenda. :)

Thanks!

Radio comes out very easily. You need to remove the two screws above the steering wheel (above the gauges), i think thats the only two, and then pull on the piece around the radio and by where you took the screws out (its all one big piece). Then once thats out of the way then theres a few screws/bolts that hold the sterio itself in. If your car is an automatic than put the shifter in 1st, itll make it alot easier to manuver the dash. Just reverse to put it back on.

The only thing i would like to add is that there are 2 screws in the back of the cubby hole under the radio/heater controls

I dont remember taking off the two screws that your talking about. Maybe someone removed the dash before me and never replaced the screws. Ill have to look and see.

yeah my car is a 97 gt. My stereo display and volume knob started screwing up so i decided it was a good time for an upgrade I just did it about 3 months ago.

I hate to sound stupid , but every grand am i drove ever , has had a problem with engine temp shooting up. I check with a couple gm shops and they tell me unless its running into the red or causing problems its ok and its normal for the temp to shoot up on these cars. Any suggestions as to why?

ive only noticed temp probs if ther eis something wrong, fan usually controls the temps pretty well and i live in central texas. cars just catch on fire in the middle of the interstate sometimes because they overheat waiting in traffic.......or they get to close to the burning mattresses............

My car was overheating and after replacing the thermostat i found that i had a clogged radiator so i replaced it and havent had a problem since. it always runs just over half on the temp gauge and when im in traffic it creeps up until the fan kicks on and then shoots right back down

I have another question. We flushed the radiator, got it all filled back up. But, the indicator light(for low coolant) on the dash won't go off. The only time it did that to me before was when the water pump went out. Any ideas what that might be?

Thanks!

Sometimes an air bubble gets stuck on the low coolant sensor located in the overflow tank after it has been empty. Tap (hard) the overflow tank, and you might dislodge the bubble. If that doesn't work, unbolt the tank and turn it upside down. The bubble will come out.

This happened to me after fixing my clogged radiator (same temperature problems). GM did a terrible job designing this sensor.

Ok.....I have another question for you all. You've been so helpful :) It WAS an air bubble and we got that fixed.

The radio thing was kind of difficult. Had no problem getting the old one out. Had a friend who came over and put the new one in. When first hooking the wires up, it blew a fuse in the radio AND on the car. So, replaced the fuses....got it all put in and it seemed to do fine.

Then, this morning, we noticed that my headlights weren't working right. The bright lights wouldn't work. Then, they started working again, then they stopped. The running lights are going fine. On my drive home, the radio quit completely, then the lights started working again.

Any ideas on that one? :)

Sounds like when i disconnected the battery to work on my sterio and the positive post was not tight enough and the time i used the positive post on the fuse box and forgot to screw it on tight. Maybe?

it sounds like you probably messed up the wires when hooking up the radio and now the cicuit breaker on the headlight switch is tripping out and then reseting when it cools