Bizarre - Check Gages alarm with Temp Gauge ...

[HoseHead]

showing about 80% delfection. My wife was cruising home on the highway doing 100 km/hr for about an hour. She had to slow down for a turning vehicle and received these alarms. She pulled over right away and stopped the engine. She waited about ten minutes and re-started the car. Everything to normal. It happened again (another hour or so @ 100 km/hr and a slow down), but this time she kept going and everything went normal in about 20 seconds and she finished her trip (another hour) without further events. She said the car ran perfectly otherwise. Ice cold air and gobs of power.

It's got me baffled. Comments? Experiences? Anything I should look at?

Bruce

[JT93SC]

The only thing I can think of is I wonder if your Fan is on it's way out. I didn't get the check Gauges Alarm, but when my fan went it would cut out sometimes and my Temp Gauge would go up and then it would start again. So it could be the fan or possibly your Temp sensor. Have her take a good look at the temp gauge if it happens again...
JT
showing about 80% delfection. My wife was cruising home on the highway doing 100 km/hr for about an hour. She had to slow down for a turning vehicle and received these alarms. She pulled over right away and stopped the engine. She waited about ten minutes and re-started the car. Everything to normal. It happened again (another hour or so @ 100 km/hr and a slow down), but this time she kept going and everything went normal in about 20 seconds and she finished her trip (another hour) without further events. She said the car ran perfectly otherwise. Ice cold air and gobs of power.

It's got me baffled. Comments? Experiences? Anything I should look at?

Bruce

[SeanMatteson]

With the outside temps being this high lately, running the car even on the highway with the AC on max can result in overheating. There are a number of members both up here in Canada and down in the U.S. who have been having this problem lately.

If you see the symptoms again, try turning off the AC and see if the temps drop. Remember that the temperature sensor that sends signal to the gauge does not control the check engine light, nor does it feed signal to the EEC. Those functions are fed signal from the ECT sensor which is located on the passenger side of the motor, atop the fitting that threads into the lower intake manifold. It is possible that either the little sensor feeding the gauge is reading lower than actual temps, or that the other sensor is reading high and falsely indicating an overheat condition.

It could also be the case that your fan is only operating on the low speed. Perhaps the high speed windings are dead.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Sean

[HoseHead]

Thanks Sean.

Scheduled road run this weekend so I will take the tools and my CAA card. I drove it to the office this morning (45 minutes mostly highway) and I couldn't get the symptom to re-occur. Temp Gauge showing 45-60% deflection, depending on the conditions - normal for this car.

I'll check the fan windings tonight to eliminate that item.

One thing I haven't done is a cooling system flush since I bought the car in Jun 04. Coolant looks clean in the rad and the overflow tank. Rad was replaced in 99 with an OEM piece.

Thanks again and more to follow as I investigate. Cheers.

Bruce

[fturner]

Hey Bruce,

I've seen the check gauges lights a couple of times a couple of weeks ago as well, even if I'm wasn't running the A/C. The temp gauge though was just above the C where I know it should be around the OR mark. The light would stay on for about 20 seconds, then the temp guage would leap up to the OR mark and the light would go out...... In my case I think it was just air bubbles causing the temp gauge to mess up, but its cleared out now (I hope)

I'm just curious if its coming on letting us know that what the gauge says is different from what the computer is picking up by a big margin.

As for your antifreeze, unfortunately you can't go by how it looks. It could be in there for 5 years and still look clean. Its the electrolisys that builds up after a couple of years that starts to eat away at... you guess it.... gaskets, including your head gaskets :eek:, and worse case scenario if left for eons can actually start to pit away at aluminum.

If your not to sure about when it was changed, I'd go ahead and flush and change now just to be on the safe side.

Frit