Was waiting in the drive-through at McDonalds for about 5-10min. Suddenly, my temperature gauge went up about quarter way past half (was a little below half originally) . I had my heater on and it was pretty cold at night. After that happen, I immediately turned off my heater. Another 5min past and the temperature drop back to about above half. Got my food and as soon as I stepped on the gas, the the temperature dropped back to the way it was before which was slightly below the half way mark. Got back to my apartment, and popped the hood; the motor felt normal, no signs of overheating, no leaks, and checked the reservoir tank. There was plenty of water in there. What's the cause of this? Never experienced this before until now. Am I heading towards a new thermostat/radiator or was my fan not kicking in at the moment. Kinda weird. Any advice would be helpful.

 

yea i would go ahead and just replace the thermostat its super cheap and super easy to replace.. and just for future reference its a good idea to turn the heater ON if your car starts to overheat it helps the engine cool down a bit... also like yopu said the fans might not be kicking on...

 

+1 on the thermostat.

 

I will consider changing the thermostat. The car is running fine at the moment though. Kind of weird.

 

used to happen to me once in awhile on my da, i replaced my thermostat and did a coolant flush and it was all good

 

I haven't had a thermostat problem yet, but from what I hear they start getting fussy -- fine one minute, bad the next, then fine again -- so that's typical I think. Besides it's the kind of thing that will go out eventually anyways so you might as well replace it to see if it fixes the problem, and you'll be fine for another 10 or 15 years.

 

True that. How much is for one anyways?

 

probably like 15$

 

Oooo in that case, I might be changing it out this weekend then.

 

yeah thats probably a good idea, check the coolant in your radiator as well, i think sometimes bubbles in the system cause cause the temp gauge to mess up once in awhile

 

Will do since my car is taking longer than usual to warm up.