Hey there my car my over heats after like 5 min of driving the temp needle goes all the way to high. i check there seem to be no leaks and the fan for sone reason doesnt spin..so do any of you guys kno if its the fan or the thermostat?

 

Does it only over heat at low speeds or even freeway speeds? Need more info.

 

The fan helps cooling but if your actualy driving wind/air will cool it more than the fan will. If your sitting there idleing and it overheats it could be your fans, if your actually driving and it overheats its probably your thermostat.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by St Jimmy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The fan helps cooling but if your actualy driving wind/air will cool it more than the fan will. If your sitting there idleing and it overheats it could be your fans, if your actually driving and it overheats its probably your thermostat.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Process 1: Preliminary thing to do
1.) Let the car sit overnight (fully cool for a long time)
2.) Make sure the car is on level ground anytime you mess around coolant. It's kind of like how you want the car to be level when checking the oil level.
3.) Pull off the radiator cap in the morning
4.) If the coolant is not all the way at the top, then you have a big air bubble. Proceed to put a funnel in the hole and top it off.
5.) Turn the car on and let it run with the heater on full-blast. Watch your temp gauge carefully at this point. Normal operating temp is when the needle gets to 3/4 of the way between "C" and the half way mark. If it gets to the half way mark or further, it's overheating.
6.) Bubbles may continue to come out while the car is warming up. This isn't anything to be too alarmed about....yet.
7.) Yet make sure the fluid is topped off during this time.
8.) When the car is at normal operating temp and the bubbles have seem to have stopped, turn the car off.
9.) Air bubbles may or may not show up at this point. If they do and the coolant goes down, then just add more to top if off.

Note:
- If you car is overheating that bad, you likely have a huge air bubble. That is the most common reason. This will, in turn, likely cause your fans not to turn on. It's simple though when you think about it; the air bubble in your coolant is what is flaming hot, not the coolant itself. Since the coolant itself is not that hot, then your radiator sensor does not see the hot temperature in which it is told to turn on the fan.
- Try this...if your needle goes to the hot mark again, turn your heater on full-blast. If the air coming out is cool to luke-warm then it could be the air bubble concept spoken of directly above. If it's hotter than hell, then you might not have a big bubble.

Process 2: Assuming the above process is done correctly, and it still overheats
1.) If the overheating comes back right away or within the next couple of days do the following.
2.) With the car on and warmed up, turn it off and immediately run to the engine and look at the coolant overflow bottle. If there are tons of bubbles in there than its likely you have a bad headgasket.
3.) If your coolant overflow bottle is mysteriously loosing coolant out of it, then you likely have a bad headgasket.
4.) Assuming bubbles or no bubbles, inspect the thermostat and/or just replace the thing. They are cheap and are very easy to replace. There are tons of writes up here on H-T.com with pictures and everything.
5.) Check the fuses that control the fans and see if any of them are blown.

Conclusion: I understand how frustrating overheating can be. I dealt with it for over two years before finally figuring it out. Don't get too discouraged....you will figure it out, it just takes time and patience.

 

my friends car did that, all he needed was coolant, when it overheated he put on the heat in the car all the way and the motor cooled so he could get it where he needed to go. so my guess would be check ur coolant