So this little problem has been going at us.. quite a few times in the past few years we've had the car, to make a long story short it sat for a few years because nobody in the house had a license to drive, we had people over every few weeks who'd take us places with it -- and eventually we noticed it was overheating.
So of course, we had the coolant flushed/refilled. The problem seemed to go away for a little while, but soon enough it came back -- we had one of our mechanics who thought it was the thermostat (pretty sure the one that controls the coolant or whatever) -- and switched that (nobody ever switched the thermometer itself out)... but that didn't fix it either.
In the end the mechanics figured it was just the temperature gauge going wonky, because you can leave the car idle all day and it's just fine [stays in the middle] -- drive it a while (especially city streets) and it goes up (again especially at intersections).
As said, tis' a 2.0 4 banger, but I'm beginning to think this might be fan related -- I tried starting the car earlier when its gauge was at 3/4 with the hood up, noticed the fan kicked in, then it went to high speed after a moment, then it stopped completely o_O At that temp?! What could be causing that?
I thought about turning on the heat but when I put on the "panel" setting full blast all I heard was what sounded like a fan near the dashboard go on, tried the heat and then heard the big fan go to full blast again, but wasn't sure if that was just a thermostat fluke or the heat actually does that..
Hrm, other things to note: We've given it an oil change, new air filter (for engine, not the AC one yet though it needs it real bad) and new spark plugs (it did have some hard starts which I thought was that) -- one we're waiting on the mechanic to get on is replacing a valve gasket (I think?) -- he found oil on 2 of the sparkplugs when he pulled them out but said it really wasn't a big deal [didn't think it was related to the overheating either, though it could have been caused by it].
Oh yeah, related to that one -- every now and then the check engine light comes on but I'm 99% positive it has to do with the gasket and oil getting on the sparkplugs.
Guess that's about all I have to say. Any suggestions?
Still find it weird as heck to be driving a car we got when I was like.. 9 or 10.. lol [18 now], but it does drive nice
OOH yeah three more thoughts: 1. When I turn the car on, the airbag light comes on for a few seconds and goes off -- are the sensors unhooked? and 2. How would you go about replacing the hood release latch? (a few years ago a smog check place my mom and a friend took the car to broke that sucker so I have to yank the cable) -- be nice to not have to do that :|
3rd one: How would I tell if the wiring harness was replaced?
