Heating Issue?

So I've noticed that the fan on my radiator has been blasting really high as of late (last week) and this morning when driving to work, my temperature gauge was a lot higher than usual. It didn't hit the red mark yet but it's getting close - a few more clicks and it'll be there.

Anyways, any thoughts on what could be causing the my temperature to rise so high? The car seems to run fine with no issues aside from the fan constantly running (back then it used to turn on and then after it cools down a bit it'll go off) and the higher than usual temperature this morning.

Thanks in advance.

Thermostat may be stuck closed, radiator cap might be bad, , water pump could possibly be failing.

I'd do the easy stuff first, rad cap, thermostat, rad flush and new coolant.

Is the radiator full? Don't drive it if it's going to overheat, you'll end up warping a head.

Yeah, radiator should be full because the overflow tank was completely full still but I'll double check to be safe.

How can I check the thermostat to see if it's working properly or not!?!

One way to check is once the car is up to operating temp grab the upper radiator hose or touch the radiator. If its cold then the coolant isnt circulating.

Thermostat may be stuck closed, radiator cap might be bad, , water pump could possibly be failing.

I'd do the easy stuff first, rad cap, thermostat, rad flush and new coolant.

:1: for that. Ideally you're supposed to do a coolant flush once a year anyway.

Okay, my car's overheating. I live about 12 minutes from work and I couldn't make it home tonight without stopping.

I started the car when going home, warmed it up for about 5 minutes as usual, then headed home. On my way up the hill about less than 5 minutes away from my house, my temperature started climbing REALLY fast so I pulled over right before it hit the red mark and shut the car off. I waited over an hour for the temperature to drop back down and headed home. On my way home, it climbed to the halfway mark but I made it home and shut the car off as soon as I got home so it didn't get a chance to climb that high anymore.

One way to check is once the car is up to operating temp grab the upper radiator hose or touch the radiator. If its cold then the coolant isnt circulating.

Okay, I did the check and both the hose as well as the radiator were both warm/hot. So that means no clog, right?

The radiator cap is less than a year old with about only 4,500 miles on it. The cap was tight and the radiator was full of coolant.

So what should I do/check next? How would I check the thermostat to make sure it's working properly (I'm assuming the other check was to make sure coolant was circulating and that there isn't a clog!?!)? Would you recommend I just replace it? I don't mind but I'm not exactly sure where it's located... :uhoh:

Anyways, I won't be driving the car until I get this figured out so if you guys have any other ideas then I'm all ears.

Thanks again!

EDIT: yes, I'm searching 3SI as well but there's like 3 billion threads that pop up...DOH! :(

A thermostat is cheap and relatively easy to do. Why not start there? If you haven't changed the coolant in awhile, that stuff can slightly corrode the thermostat and cause it to stick.

^^Yeah, I'm planning too. I just don't where it's located at. I figured it's next to the thermostat housing somewhere but I don't know if it's visible from the top or if parts need to be removed before you can access it!?!

Help!?!

if you take the housing off its in there.

I would replace the thermostat, and ensure the coolant is full. Since your upper an lower rad. hoses get warm and the fans come on, i don't suspect your water pump to fail.
I do, however, think that if replacing the thermostat doesn't work you are probably looking at a head gasket issue.

A couple of quick questions.

In the past, after flushing my cooling system, I would just drain my radiator and overflow tank and top both off and call it a day. However, I've been reading and have heard that there's actually fluid in the engine block as well that needs to be drained. How would I go about draining the fluid in the block? And how do I top that off so that when I turn my car back on it doesn't overheat because of lack of fluid in the block?

What's "burping" the cooling system? I've never done that in the past and have never had any issues but apparently, maybe I've been doing it wrong all along. So uh, how do you burp the system?

You can use regular water and just pour it in the rad. and start the car dont let it run too long but just enough to flush it through the system. To be on the safe side you can mix it with coolant and just run it through that way just to try and clean what you can. You'll never really get it all out but always can do it as a precaution.

AS far as burping the system use a funnel, pour in your mix of 50/50, once the funnle stops going down you run the car. As the car heats up the fluid in the funnel will bubble and drain into the rad. This just means the thermostat opened and the coolant is working its way through, just keep the funnel filled with fluid until it all stops bubbling. Should take at most 30 min or so.

Or,
you can remove the 2 14mm block plugs and drain the block. THey are on what's called the front and rear of the engine. You will notice they aren't connecting anything to the engine so that should tip you off that those are the bolts.

Also, I HIGHLY DOUBT flushing your system is going to fix this problem.
But good luck with it man.
-Steve

^^Oh, I'm definately going to change the thermostat too (already picked one up). But I was gonna flush my system as well since it was suggested by other members in addition to the thermostat change.

As far as flushing goes, I use the Prestone flush fluid from Kragen...do you guys just use water/coolant? Is that "better?"

Thanks again for all the help. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

UPDATE: You guys are great! Really though, to everyone who helped with this issue, THANK YOU! I know I ask a lot of stupid questions but it's usually because 1-I'm clueless because this is my first time handling this issue and 2-I'm paranoid about messing up so I kinda wanna know "exactly" what I'll be doing beforehand so I can be prepared. But seriously, thanks for all the help because I think my car is fixed (I'll know for sure if it doesn't heat up within the next couple of days).

Here's what happened...

I took out the old thermostat and it looked completely fine but there was this white "plastic"-like piece that seemed to have been stuck to the thermostat. Not sure if this was the problem or not but maybe it was blocking some sort of passageway!?! I dunno. Anyways, I went ahead and changed out the old one just to be safe. I put everything back, topped off the coolant, and burped the system.

Q1-when I was burping the system, the coolant started bubbling and going down but it kept going down and didn't stop. So much so that eventually the coolant started coming out of the overflow tank. So although it never really stopped, all the air should be gone since the overflow tank started overflowing, right?

Q2-I decided to check my oil today since I was outside and when I pulled off the cap, there was milky reside on the cap!!!! My first thoughts were "F*CK, BLOWN HEAD GASKET!!!" But the oil on the dipstick looked completely clean/normal so I was really confused. Since I'm paranoid, I went ahead and drained the oil just to be safe and the oil looked completely normal (WHEW).

My question: what was that milky substance? It was really strange because it was only on the cap but the rest of the oil was okay. Should this be a cause for concern? Anything I should be paying attention to to make sure it doesn't get worse withing the next couple of days/weeks?

Thanks again guys for all the help.

The milky residue was probably just due to condensation.

Dont worry, you're not the first to freak out about it