Need help! my car is overheating every time i drive it in the 250*+ range, when im cruising on the highway its fine and when I start to heat up a lot i put the heat on in the cabin and it holds the engine temp down to about 230ish. I switched around relays from fan1, fan 2, and the AC clutch. All of them work in the AC clutch spot but none of them in the fan 1/fan 2 spot. Also when I turn on the AC the fans do not kick on (which I know they are supposed to). Has anyone ever hooked up their cooling fans manually to test them? If so, how did you do it? another question is, how do the relays look when they are in the fuse box if someone has a picture? I want to make sure they are in right. Lastly, the relays for both the fans are really hot when I try to pull them out after the car is at normal operating temps, is this normal? Thanks for any help!

 

anyone?

 

You check the thermostats? 250 I'm surprised your car is even alive.

 

if u would of tooken care of ur car from beginning u had it...u would have this problem...stop hauling ass..u take care of ur car, it will take care of u. plain simple

 

HAHAHAHA, haulin ass? im just a regular 2.2 with no mods lmao and i do take care of my car lol

 

thermostat seems to be fine, it goes down to regular operating temp when I'm driving on the highway, only when im in stop and go traffic or sitting do the temps get that high. Im trying to trouble shoot the problem because my fans don't come on at all. I've moved around the relays to the defroster/ac clucth/fan 1/fan2. they all work when plugged into the ac clutch position but none work when i plug them into the fan1/fan2 spots. im thinking that either A) my fan motor is bad or B) something with the pcm not turning the fans on.

 

I dont see anywhere that said you checked the fuses!!

 

Should have included that too, all the fuses i found under the hood for the fans were fine (they were all 30Amp pink ones that were ok.

 

perhaps the water pump went bad

 

Would this stop coolant flow completely?

 

No. Water pumps on these cars will leak before anything else.

Hoooweever. What you're describing sounds like your cooling fan is shot. You may be able to get just a motor for it but I'm not sure.

P.S. STOP DRIVING IT UNTIL YOU CAN FIX IT! 250 is NOT good for an engine. Into the 230s is where you should be immediatly finding a place to pull over and shut the car down. Oh... and if you hit 300+ you basically need an engine. I've seen it happen.

 

Thanks for the info, I didn't think that the water pump was bad because it goes down to normal temps when I'm on the highway. no water pump=no coolant flowing= it would still be overheating then too, correct? Im going to order a whole new fan setup online, does anyone know if the ss/sc or ss/tc dual fans will plug right up in a 2.2?

 

It sounds like the fans have stopped working for some reason. Have you checked all connections to the fans? Have you tried to put your hand on the fan motors after you ran the car for some time?

You should think of changing your oil soon, as it will be toast. Check your other fluids too during this. If the car is an auto, smell the fluid for a burnt smell. If it has that, you will need to replace that too.

As for the relays, they use to put a drawing into the block on how they went in.

 

You can always try to run power direct to the fans and see if they work. There's only one fan on your car, the 1 and 2 relays are for high and low speeds on the 2.2/2.4L cars.

Do you know what a relay is/does? Try jumpering across the load circut with the relay out and see if the fan kicks on. Did you check the relay terminals in the box for power on the load and signal side with the engine running and a/c on? The fan 1 one should have power anytime the engine is on and fan running. Fan 2 control circut won't close until the temps reach the breakpoint for higher commanded fan speeds.

 

This. Check with a multimeter to see if you're even getting power for the fan relay and the fan source power.


Oh and holy crap, congrats on being the 1st person I've seen on here thats actually overheating

 

I Know! I've been searching overheating and all i get is threads about temps being in the low 200's lol I'm goonna try the multi-meter/jumper wire now to see if that helps. All connections are secure that I've found. I tried hooking a wire up right from the high speed fan wire (blue one) to the positive terminal under the hood, but the fan didn't turn on.

 

I've been checking everything, I used synthetic oil the past two oil changes and it seems to be holding up ok.

 

If you ran direct power to the fan and it didn't move, bad fan motor, replace it.

 

I have a 2.2 fan, only has 17k on it, make me an offer if you need it

 

If jumpering the fan relay in the fuse box didn't work I'd start blaming the fan motor as stated above. Just so you know the ones you need to jump are diagonal from each other, can't remember off hand which ones.

 

I ran direct power to the blue wire (high power one) and nothing all, I'm banking on it being a bad fan motor. I ordered a whole new assembly with the shroud and everything on Friday.

 

If only I would have seen this post before I ordered a new assembly!! lol

 

Thanks for the info! i tried running direct power to it but got nothing, so I'm thinking the motor is bad.

 

This!


And don't worry too much about your engine - as long as your cooling system holds full pressure and you're running the right mix of coolant and water, 250 is not going to hurt anything. Where you really run into trouble is when the coolant starts to boil and turn into steam, at which point it loses the ability to transfer heat away from the engine, and in a healthy system that's over 260 degrees.

 

If it's hitting 250 and the fans aren't coming on there's definitely a problem though. Suckers should come on at 211? And for sure come up when the A/C is on. Might not be a problem now, but if it continues like that it will cause issues. Oil coking is no fun.