Overheated! Coolant service flash done day before!

[vc22348]

I took my car in yesterday for them to do the amonia/cloudy coolant fix. I had them do an oil change, rotate the tires, and do their million point inspection as I have 41K on the car now. They gave me very little static about doing the coolant flush and fill but one guy called his boss etc., and they did it.

The car had been heating up lately and I thought maybe it was something to do with the coolant so this would fix it...WRONG! I drove it home and it started getting hot. I parked it and thought I would talk to someone today at the dealer. I drove to the dealer only to find out they are closed on Sundays and the Dodge dealer took their service instead. I drove home since the guy that wrote my service order was off.

On the way home at a light my car starts to heat up again. I turn on the heater and open the windows...230...240...250...260...the light turns green and then another light...I look and 271! 275! 280! Then the chime goes "bing" and my temp guage drops to zero! The car is still purring but now I smell coolant and it's starting to steam out of the expansion reservoir. The traffic light goes green and I get on the freeway.

I take it easy, letting the air cool the engine down as I hit 55-65. It slowly starts going back down. By the time I got to my house it was back down to 250.

I think my fans aren't working. Gotta take it in tomorrow! Just had to vent.

Oh, and all this with my 5-year-old in her car seat complaining that it was too hot. "Yeah, hunny, it's 105 degrees outside and daddy's got the heater on full blast so that his engine doesn't explode!"

Whew. Done. I feel a little better. Now to go back to the dealer and

[BMWDON]

Dude, that sucks, especially with your kid in the car...sorry to hear you had to do that Did you take a look and make sure the asshats didn't do something dumb like unplug the fans and you just need to plug them back in? Might be an easy fix Then again, might be a full on failed pair of fans...that would suck bigtime

[dodgeboy]

Those are some seriously high temps! I hope no damage was done...

I'd definitely do a visual inspection under the hood to make sure it's not an obvious issue (fans unplugged, no coolant, kinked hose, etc.).

I had some major issues with my coolant fix as well, but nothing as serious as that. Sorry to hear about this...

Dave

[lafrad]

I bet it has something to do with the system being improperly bled out after the coolant change...

It might never do it again because it may have worked the air-pocket out...

[dodgeboy]

I bet it has something to do with the system being improperly bled out after the coolant change...

It might never do it again because it may have worked the air-pocket out...

That's a definite possibility... It sure supports the water temp gauge dropping to zero, because the ECT sensor is right next to the water pump. If there was an air pocket at the water pump that encompassed the ECT sensor, it wouldn't be able to pump any water, and would probably show a lower than actual water temp reading...

Why is it so difficult for dealers to do such a simple task?

Dave

[lafrad]

bleeding the system is a very large pain in my ass... probably is for them too...

Technically... all it *Really* takes is 2 full idle-to-hot cycles... (at least in my experiance).

Start car after doing re-fill. Let it warm up while idling... (3-5 minutes depending on otuside temp)... let it sit for a few hours... top off tank... rinse, repeat.

that 'Few hours' part is probably why dealers don't like it...

[vc22348]

Thanks guys.

It did suck with my kid in the car.

I checked all the usual under-hood things. Everything looked fine to me. No obvious tumors or missing pieces like a loose filler cap. I do hope it's nothing more than unplugged fans. I hope for their sake no damage occurred. As for the status on the car, it's in their hands now. I'll keep y'all updated. It sucks to be without my car. At least my neighbor and new best friend lent me his kickass rock crawling Jeep Rubicon to drive around while my car gets fixed. What a HUGE difference in driving experience!

[Blue Beast]

same exact thing happened to me, had the csrt8 in for the flush and BOTH fans went out, and had to be replaced, bad part was they were both on national back order........that was 2 weeks ago so there should be a problem now it did take 8 days for the dealer to get the fans which sucked.........BUT on the way home afer getting the new fans, the temps started to rise again, took it back in and aparently the internals in the fans that came with the car, and the new fans had changed, well for what ever reason they did a cpu upgrade and all is well....gl

[330toSRT8]

My SRT8 was in the shop for 14 days due to failed fans. The failure was out of the blue, not due to dealer neglect. They replaced the relays, fuses, entire fuse block, front control module, both fan motors, but no dice. Finally, they replaced the entire fan assembly with two new fans and it worked. Actually, it now runs much cooler than before thanks to the coolant flush that removed the white crap.

[vc22348]

Got a call from the dealer...Yup, it was the fans. Somehow they crapped out. The service writer was saying it was the fuses. At first he inferred that I had swapped the 30amp with the 60amp in the fuse box... He backed off after some back and forth and I said I would take it all the way up the chain if I needed to. He then said something about the Jeeps burning through fans too and that it was probably the fuses and the relay blah blah blah... At this point I think he was just trying to appease me. They are going to replace the fans ASAP.

[BMWDON]

My SRT8 was in the shop for 14 days due to failed fans. The failure was out of the blue, not due to dealer neglect. They replaced the relays, fuses, entire fuse block, front control module, both fan motors, but no dice. Finally, they replaced the entire fan assembly with two new fans and it worked. Actually, it now runs much cooler than before thanks to the coolant flush that removed the white crap.

Holy crap! 14 days for them to get around to replacing the entire assembly?!?! That sucks nuts, what dealership was that?

Got a call from the dealer...Yup, it was the fans. Somehow they crapped out. The service writer was saying it was the fuses. At first he inferred that I had swapped the 30amp with the 60amp in the fuse box... He backed off after some back and forth and I said I would take it all the way up the chain if I needed to. He then said something about the Jeeps burning through fans too and that it was probably the fuses and the relay blah blah blah... At this point I think he was just trying to appease me. They are going to replace the fans ASAP.

Glad they finally fessed up and are replacing your stuff, hope you aren't carless for 14 damn days

[GoofyTimL]

I didn't notice or have outrageous temps like discussed above, but I was "low" on coolant the next morning. So I went to a dealership and bought a gallon of antifreeze ($18) and topped it off myself. Absolutely no problems since then.

However, I would think that after so many miles (mine has only 6.5k) you might still have some severe gunk deep in engine crevices, etc. Keep and eye on your coolant bottle and if you see ANY HINT of more gunk showing up there (look for a light layer in the bottom), then go back and have the flush done again... and this time have them add "extra" coolant so you don't have to refill as much.

[vc22348]

Yeah, I guess I'm lucky. They have a fan assembly coming today. The car should be ready by Friday at the latest I was told.

About the outrageous temps...I asked them to check the heads and seals to make sure that nothing fried. I'll take your advise GoofyTim.

[rander]

You'd be suprised how these techs don't know how to bleed these motors. I learned the hard way too. Mine overheated as well even though I thought I filled her up. Come to find out you need to remove the allen head thread bolt just above the water pump and fill her up until the water begins to come out of the hole. HTH. It's pretty easy to do once you get the hang of it.

[AZRC]

Sorry to hear about the cooling fans kick'n the bucket. This has not happened to me as of yet but with the temps in Phoenix my rad fans seem to be always running.

I like at avatar of the Mach 5. Do you have a larger version of that picture? It looks like an actual car.