Temperature issue

[Adam Williamson]

I was out for a cruise today and ended up sitting in traffic for a little while, so I flipped on my AC for about 30 seconds then turned it off. About a minute later I look down and see my temp gauge right up at hot. This of course scares the Be-Jesus out of me so I turn on the heat full blast and within seconds the gauge goes back to normal (halfway). I continued on my drive and had no problems and the temperature stayed normal no matter how hard I drove. Any thoughts as to what may have caused this :?:

[Hans Ma]

this may be a stupid question, but if your temp is extremely hot, why turn the heat even hotter to full blast to solve the problem?   :oops:

[Ivan Skare]

Thermostat! I just changed mine like 3 days ago. Get a low temp one...they're like 10 bucks.

[John Hartman]

Hans, your heater core is just another small radiator.  Its just pushing its heated air into your passenger compartment instead of out into the world.

So, if you want to get your temps down, say after a long hill climb or something, turn your heater on full.

This allows the max air to transfer heat from your heater core into the air.

Downside is that your car usually overheats when its hotter than hell out and you have to live within the furies of Hades till your car cools down/

[Adam Williamson]

Thanks guysI was kinda leaning towards the Thermostat, I'll have to go and pick up a new one tomorrow. It was really wierd though, even when the gauge was reading really hot, everything was running fine. Drove it for a good hour after that happened and had no temperature problems

[Jesse Veitch]

low temp will give you worse gas milage, I'd stick with oem, unelss you race, or you jsut giv'er shit everywhere

[John Hartman]

as long as your thermostat keeps the car above open loop temps your gas mileage will not change.

[Kimyee Lai]

Also make sure you're full on coolant.  Open your rad cap when the car is cold and see if it's full up.

[Adam Williamson]

Also make sure you're full on coolant.  Open your rad cap when the car is cold and see if it's full up.

Yeah, I got caught in that stupid traffic jam on the patello bridge last night and it was getting hot again...on with the heaters... This morning I checked and it was a little low on coolant, not bad but a little low, so I topped 'er up, I think I may still slap on a new thermostat anyway. Thanks guys

[Mike Schmid]

Take your rad cap off and check the seals on the underside too.  I had one that would squirt a little bit of fluid out every once in a while and it eventually dropped the level of coolant enough it started overheating.

[Robin Toor]

Do a coolant flush and replace your rad cap and thermostat. It'll cost you $20. That MIGHT fix it. If not, then it's something else.