I guess one question I have is, what IS an acceptable running temperature to be seeing on the MFA/Coolant gauge? Once my car warms up, cruising at 60-65 it runs about 210 on the MFA and in town going down long road at 45mph it drops to 202-205. In stand still traffic, it gets about as high as 225-230~ on the mfa but cools way down once i start moving again. Thats about right isnt it? I had my AC and AC rad pulled so my radiator can breathe a lot easier, when I had it done last year, i noticed an immediate difference of almost 10 degrees across all the diff driving conditions.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Galen Bergthold" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 6:25 PM Subject: RE: [a2-16v-list] help! overheating problem! > Andrew, > > My car behaved similarly a few years ago (91 GTI 16V - stock). In the > summer, as I kept driving it daily to work, it kept getting hotter and > hotter on both the temperature gauge and the MFA until I had to turn off the > AC to get the overheat light to go off. No leaks, level OK, water pump OK, > radiator fan (single fan) ran OK. I flushed the system, using Prestone super > coolant flush, refilled w/distilled water and new coolant. This helped the > temperatures drop about 10 degrees per MFA but didn't really solve the > problem. I reflushed the system cleaned/power-washed the outside of the > radiator and installed a low temperature thermostat (80 C). This made the > car warm up a little slower but didn't help the overall temperature issue. I > finally bought a new (stock) radiator and installed it. Problem solved. My > old radiator must have had too much internal corrosion for good heat > transfer. I can now run the AC in the summer, in traffic, with no > overheating. > HTH, > GBergthold > > >From: Andrew White <[email protected]> > >To: [email protected] > >Subject: [a2-16v-list] help! overheating problem! > >Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 11:58:35 -0400 > > > >OK- so I have an overheating problem, but I'm not really sure the car is > >actually overheating. It's a 1992 16v GLI 2.0, and I just had the > >headgasket replaced last week by a good shop. They checked the head, it > >wasn't warped at all- was in great shape. Since then, I've been running > >hot- about 3/4 on the temp gauge, about 224-234 on the oil gauge. The car > >has a brand new low-temp thermostat, as well as a passat dual radiator fan > >set up. Should be nice and cool. The odd thing is that the overheating > >light keeps on coming on- sometimes about about 5/8ths of the way up the > >temp gauge, sometimes at about 220 for oil temps. The car doesn't seem to > >be over heating (and the coolant level is not low). The radiator fan kicks > >on fine, but the temperatures it comes on at does not seem to reflect what > >my gauges are reading. I've tried a few things (see below) to no avail- has > >anyone got any ideas? It's really fustrating, my next step might be to > >replace the actual coolant temp sensor and see if that helps. > > > >What I've done: > >1. "Burp" the coolant system to get out air bubbles, there were some, but > >not a ton (am going to redo that today) > >2. Tried bypassing the coolant level sensor, overheat light still came on. > >3. Clean up the wire on the coolant temp sensor, overheat light still came > >on. > >4. Put in a new thermostat (180 degree), overheat light still came on. > >5. Checked timing- was right on. > > > >The odd thing is that sometimes my oil temps hits 230 on the highway when I > >have the A/C on, and the overheat light comes on. Turning off the A/C cools > >the car back to about 224, overheat light goes off. It sounds like a flow > >problem to me, but the radiator heats across the whole thing, it looks like > >I have good flow back to the return bottle, and the water pump is not > >leaking/makes no noise. > > > >Help!! > > > >Andrew > > > >........................................................................ > >PGP public key available from: > >http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x82D3E4A0 > > > >26 + 6 = 1 > > > >_______________________________________________ > >a2-16v-list mailing list > >[email protected] > >http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list > >For list archives, see listinfo link above. > > > _______________________________________________ > a2-16v-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list > For list archives, see listinfo link above. >
