For the last week or so my car has regularly been seeing about 230 degrees on the coolant temp. When it hits that high my heater does this thing where it stops blowing hot air and starts blowing cold air. I was under the impression that our coolant system was maintenance free for the 1st 100,000 miles or so.

I looked at the coolant tank and theres definately coolant in there but its not full. I didnt think it needed to be full though.
Only thing i can think of that might have happend is when i got my turbo installed the installer may have drained the coolant for installation then not put enough back in possibly. I was thinking of adding a coolant additive to help keep things cool.

maybe the stock cooling system isnt enough for the hahn turbo kit? I dont know of any aftermarket radiators for our cars though.

Does anyone have some insight on this?

 

First off, fill the coolant.

Also, take a look at the oil please. Could never know if you blew a head gasket.

 

yeah you will see milky white in your oil if you blew the head gasket

 

well you might have vapor lock.

 

Just wondering why you would let this happen more than once? You obvisouly have a problem and hopefully you didn't ruin your engine yet.

 

do you have any extra cooling mods to help with the heat

 

First thing I would check if you still have coolant in your coolant tank is to see if you coolant fans are comming on, if you just had work done on your car it's easy to forget to plug them back in, on our cars though you should set a code for it but you never know, anything can happen, if you fans are coming on and you still have coolant, and from the sound of you saying that your heater stops working it sounds like you may have an airpocket in your system which is preventing proper flow, I've seen a few of those is the cavaliers not sure if it's an issue on the balts.

 

Any white smoke coming from the exhaust? Fill it and if it keeps burning coolant or the oil cap looks milky, you blew a headgasket. Perfect time to upgrade to studs and a Cometic headgasket though.

 

How much can i fill the coolant? is it possible to over fill the coolant? I have a tranny cooler and intercooler but thats it for anything extra to cool the heat. I'll check the oil to see if there is any white.
I let it happen more than once because I thought it may be normal for this kind of weather here since it hasnt been this cold before with me having the car.

If i blew a headgasket, how much work and money am I looking at to replace?

 

I'm having the problem off my car is not warming hot enough too damn cold, think my thermostat is stuck open, it's around 30's to 40 high's here if we are lucky lately and I'm not getting hotter then 185 even if I let it sit there and idle for half an hour, I've been doing that cause my battery keeps discharging cause my commute is only 5 mins now.

do you have any codes or it running rough, if you totally blew a head gasket you should be missfiring and all kinds of driveablity concerns, not just it running hot, unless its a small leak.

 

my car only gets to like 192.... never went any higher unless I really get on it or sit it traffic on a hot day...what temp does yours get to normally?

 

You can overfill your coolant cuase when it gets hot the fluids have to expand a bit, the cap will release the pressure if it gets too high though and vent coolant, I would not fill it up past 3/4 of the way, it should say on the bottle fill to here when cold.

 

Subscribed.

 

temps that i normally get to and cause me no conern is about 210 tops. so when its getting to temps like 220.226, 228. thats where my concern is. car has no drivability problems though. Ill check the oil and coolant level when i get out of work today at 2.

looks like the coolant could use a top off cuz its not up to the line its about an inch lower than the line. hopefully a refill will do the thing. We use dex-cool right? also, since im turboed i think im gonna put an additive in there from whatever company has their product at pep boys.

 

could it be a thermostat stuck closed

 

pop goes the head gasket

 

Where can we get a cometic headgasket and what studs are you talking about??

 

Please read the 2.0L section.

 

do u see any coolant on the ground when u move the car? if so could be a freezer plug...

 

my freezer doesn't have any plugs

 

yeah.. but i though boats only had freeze plugs.

 

negative ghostrider

 

roffle.

Blocks have freezer plugs too!

 

I think I'm in the same boat as you. My cars temp. skyrocketed to 232 a week ago. All of a sudden I'm showing a low coolant signal on the the digital display. I checked my oil cap and sure enough it is full of yellowish froth! Bye bye headgasket!! I have an appointment Monday but needless to say it is a sad day for me and my balt. My car is stock also! Time to trade it in for a Honda!

 

well, my oil looks fine. I bought a container of dex-cool and a bottle of redline water wetter.

Is there a how to on draining the coolant since I have never done this before?

What concentration should I use in my freezing temps here in Pittsburgh with the water wetter and dexcool?

no coolant on the ground for me. perfectly dry under my car. no weird smells and no coolant lights are even on yet. I dont know what temp the light would turn on at but it never has turned on, im just going by my own judgment that the temps are too high without the light saying anything.