My teenage cousin has had a 97 Cavalier for about 6 months and is suddenly having lots of trouble with it. I've helped him as much as I can. Looking for more assistance or anecdotes of dealing with these cars/engines. Since he doe not know much about cars, you will see that sometimes all I can do is say that he told me something, with no guarantee that he was making the correct observation.
Here is the narrative:
Car was fine for months. A couple weeks ago the CEL would come on sometimes, but would go out when he shut the car down and re-started it. I told him to take 10 minutes and go to Auto Zone to get the codes read. Being a college freshman he has never had the time to do that, to this day, or so he claims.
About 2 weeks ago he claimed the Low Coolant light would flicker on and off sometimes while driving. I told him how to check the coolant level and he reported it to be slightly low (below cold fill line), but the overflow tank was far from dry. He added a little coolant and that problem went away.
Last week, he was driving to school (about an hour commute) when the temp gauge went towards the red range when he was almost at school. He shut the car off for about 10 minutes, then continued on his way, the temp gauge now reading right in the middle where it usually did. The same thing happened on his way home that day.
Enter myself into the story...went over there, visually inspected things, coolant level was fine, car would not repeat the same overheating trick for me, heater was blowing nice and warm. CEL light not on. Allowed car to idle about 15 minutes, then drove a mix of city and highway driving for about 20 minutes, then let it idle for about half an hour. Nothing changed. Oil was normal, no sign of coolant in it. Not much I could do without the kid getting the codes read.
Next couple days went fine, nothing unusual. Then the same issue of overheating toward the end of the commute happened twice in one day. All I could do was ask my cousin to check his coolant level, which he reported still seemed to not be moving and to be full while cold.
Friday while driving home, he called me in a panic saying the car kept overheating even if he stopped for 15 minutes. Once he got going it would overheat in about 2 minutes. I drove across the state to help, arrived and found the overflow bottle's cap blown off and coolant all over the bottle (not the whole engine bay). I had guessed he filled it while it was hot and overfilled the coolant, which had expanded and caused the cap to blow. We waited until the car was cold, went out to eat and did some shopping, returned and refilled it with coolant. I followed him home and the car was fine. However that day I did notice that the fan did not seem to be kicking on when the car was idling, it would only come on if the air conditioner was turned on. I thought that could be a potential problem. I also suspected a blown-but-not-yet-tragic head gasket, though the fact that the coolant wasn't disappearing had me hoping that was wrong. Oil still looked like oil, no visual sign of coolant.
Saturday I had a chance to play with the car much more. I replaced the thermostat just for good measure, however I am no genius and am not sure how to tell if the old thermo was defective (it visually appeared fine). The fan seemed to be working fine that day, always turned on as it should (AFAIK). I did a simple radiator flush (drained old coolant, ran distilled water through it, then refilled with new coolant) and bled it for about 2 hours while idling, but still it seemed to have an air bubble somewhere (heater core???) as it blows warm air only intermittently. It was always blowing warm air beforehand, which makes me suspect an air pocket in the system. Meanwhile, the temp gauge was going up and down like a yo-yo, between the middle of the normal range, and the extreme end of the normal range almost in the red. But it never "overheated", even after taking it for several rides.
Now he reports it is overheating like clockwork 5 minutes into every single ride he goes on. He only has to shut the car off for about 2 minutes before restarting and being perfectly fine the rest of the trip. No coolant consumption has been observed. Heater still works only intermittently. The CEL has come on a couple times since last week but each time it goes off then the car is re-started.
That's where we are right now, without him getting the codes read I can't think of anything else I can do. Again I am no mechanic, just a DIY guy who likes to help people out. Any help is appreciated!!!
Here is the narrative:
Car was fine for months. A couple weeks ago the CEL would come on sometimes, but would go out when he shut the car down and re-started it. I told him to take 10 minutes and go to Auto Zone to get the codes read. Being a college freshman he has never had the time to do that, to this day, or so he claims.
About 2 weeks ago he claimed the Low Coolant light would flicker on and off sometimes while driving. I told him how to check the coolant level and he reported it to be slightly low (below cold fill line), but the overflow tank was far from dry. He added a little coolant and that problem went away.
Last week, he was driving to school (about an hour commute) when the temp gauge went towards the red range when he was almost at school. He shut the car off for about 10 minutes, then continued on his way, the temp gauge now reading right in the middle where it usually did. The same thing happened on his way home that day.
Enter myself into the story...went over there, visually inspected things, coolant level was fine, car would not repeat the same overheating trick for me, heater was blowing nice and warm. CEL light not on. Allowed car to idle about 15 minutes, then drove a mix of city and highway driving for about 20 minutes, then let it idle for about half an hour. Nothing changed. Oil was normal, no sign of coolant in it. Not much I could do without the kid getting the codes read.
Next couple days went fine, nothing unusual. Then the same issue of overheating toward the end of the commute happened twice in one day. All I could do was ask my cousin to check his coolant level, which he reported still seemed to not be moving and to be full while cold.
Friday while driving home, he called me in a panic saying the car kept overheating even if he stopped for 15 minutes. Once he got going it would overheat in about 2 minutes. I drove across the state to help, arrived and found the overflow bottle's cap blown off and coolant all over the bottle (not the whole engine bay). I had guessed he filled it while it was hot and overfilled the coolant, which had expanded and caused the cap to blow. We waited until the car was cold, went out to eat and did some shopping, returned and refilled it with coolant. I followed him home and the car was fine. However that day I did notice that the fan did not seem to be kicking on when the car was idling, it would only come on if the air conditioner was turned on. I thought that could be a potential problem. I also suspected a blown-but-not-yet-tragic head gasket, though the fact that the coolant wasn't disappearing had me hoping that was wrong. Oil still looked like oil, no visual sign of coolant.
Saturday I had a chance to play with the car much more. I replaced the thermostat just for good measure, however I am no genius and am not sure how to tell if the old thermo was defective (it visually appeared fine). The fan seemed to be working fine that day, always turned on as it should (AFAIK). I did a simple radiator flush (drained old coolant, ran distilled water through it, then refilled with new coolant) and bled it for about 2 hours while idling, but still it seemed to have an air bubble somewhere (heater core???) as it blows warm air only intermittently. It was always blowing warm air beforehand, which makes me suspect an air pocket in the system. Meanwhile, the temp gauge was going up and down like a yo-yo, between the middle of the normal range, and the extreme end of the normal range almost in the red. But it never "overheated", even after taking it for several rides.
Now he reports it is overheating like clockwork 5 minutes into every single ride he goes on. He only has to shut the car off for about 2 minutes before restarting and being perfectly fine the rest of the trip. No coolant consumption has been observed. Heater still works only intermittently. The CEL has come on a couple times since last week but each time it goes off then the car is re-started.
That's where we are right now, without him getting the codes read I can't think of anything else I can do. Again I am no mechanic, just a DIY guy who likes to help people out. Any help is appreciated!!!
