Im not sure if my car is really over heating or not. If the thermostat is bad, will it just give me incorrect readings or really screw up my engine?

When i drove, the needle on the temp gauge would remain at normal for about 2 minutes of driving, and then slowly climb all the way up to red. Sometimes it would stagger back to the normal position and shoot right back up.

can someone PLEASE tell me whats going on?

Thanks

 

Try flushing out your coolant and make sure you bleed all the air out. Could be air in the system, i've seen this happen and it was just air pockets in the coolant.

 

just leave the cap off and idle to bleed air right? How Long??????

I thought I did that for about 2 minutes. is that long enough?

 

best way to get air out of the system is to jack the front of the car up as high as you can safely get it and let the car run. As it warms up keep adding coolant let the fan cycle on at least once before putting the cap back on. I always add a little extra to the overflow bottle just in case.

 

idle it with the cap off until the fan turns on for at least 3-4 times...the first time fans comes on should take like 10 minutes before it comes on...

 

ok thanks guys, ill go try that.

haha, my tank is reallly low on gas, i wonder how long i can idle for

 

how do you check to see if the water pump is good and where is it?

 

nevermind, i did a search

 

take out your upper timing belt cover, you''ll see the water pump gear...

it's located right under the stock FPR...water pump is belt driven, when they go bad, they started to make whinning noise...that's it...