|
My car used to cool itself just fine. Then my brother drove it for a day and since then it's been acting real strange. The first time I drove my car after my brother used it, the temp guage shot to redline in 5 minutes. I pulled into a gas station, and there was less than half coolant in it. There looked to be a very minor leak around the hose between the reservoir and the radiator. The heater fan also would not blow hot, even with it cranked to full. I filled it up, and that was the end of it.
Then the lower hose sprung a leak. No problem, easy fix. Then the upper hose started getting 'balloony' and it blew out. No problem, easy fix. Also did the thermostat at the same time, making sure to rotate the air hole to the top so bubbles could get out.
During all of the aforementioned events, my car has had one unifying symptom: Five minutes after startup, the guage, even with full coolant, will head for the red zone quickly (takes maybe 20 secs). Strangely, this is easy to stop. All I have to do is turn the temp control to full hot for maybe 10-20 seconds, and it'll drop all the way back to normal very quickly. I don't even have to turn the heater fan on, and it will do this. After that 10-20 seconds, I can flick the temp control back to cold, and it'll not overheat again the whole time I'm driving the car.
I've noticed that a few times that I've done the heater control trick, when I've turned on the heater fan, it'll blow cold for maybe 10 seconds, and then suddenly BAM full heat in less than 2 seconds. This is totally different from the response I used to get from the heater, where as soon as I flicked the temp control it'd start pretty warm, and gradually get hotter in an even progression.
So what could this be? I've never dealt with something this strange before, and it's kinda bothersome. The car, other than this, cools normally. I've checked the coolant and oil, and there's no mixing of either. No white smoke out the back either. Also, no coolant loss from the reservoir since fixing the hoses.
--
Isaac Babcock - '83 245DL and '83 244ti, Peace, love, and all that good stuff
|
