Overheat after coolant flush.....

[coldpizza]

I had the dealer near work, do the first flush and refill of my radiator (@ 60k miles). Drove it the 1.5 miles back to work. Several hours later (on the night before Thanksgiving) and started the 35 mile drive home in Los Angeles. Decided not to take freeway for first leg due to traffic. About 6 miles and 25 minutes into drive, the 'Check Gauge' light comes on. The engine temp was climbing. Decided to pull into the nearest supermarket (no gas stations around) to buy water. Called dealer figuring they'd be closed but wanted to tell them what great work they did [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] The service rep was there and said he'd get a tow truck there and that I shouldn't drive it. Long story short, it was towed back to service department to be worked on Friday (after Tgiving). Service manager gave me some speel about an air bubble in the system and that it must not have been purged properly. I don't understand (but haven't changed the coolant in a car newer than 1990). It used to be that you drained it from the bottom and filled from the top. I didn't find a filler that went directly into the radiator, only the one that goes to the reservoir.

Anyway, very disappointing and I hope I didn't do any permanent damage driving in an almost overheated state. I'm not sure how long the engine was hot, but I don't think more than a few minutes. I think I'm pretty good at looking at the gauges (of course I noticed the 'Check Gauge' light first).

Any comments or ideas what may have happened??

BTW, I hope all have a nice Thanksgiving!

Len

[clamgulch]

The service was lousy just as you stated and there was an air bubble in the system just as the service manager stated. Doubtful that you hurt anything. If you get an engine reeeeeeeaaaaalllly hot, the elasticity in your piston rings will go bye-bye and you will have an oil burner. Could also burn the valves, but that takes a pretty significant amount of abuse.

I have had the same air bubble problem in mine when I changed out my antifreeze. Now I just park it on a steep hill, nose up and let it idle and that seems to help purge it quite quickly.

[coldpizza]

Thanks for the info. So it seems there is no valve to purge radiator.

Oh well, just a major inconvenience at this point.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

Len

[BBBxcursion]

On the Crown vics, which also have no purge I found something that woks everytime for air bubbles. Cap off, start and let run 10 minutes. Shut off and let sit 5 minutes. Keep cap off and start again and let it reach operating temp. Turn off and let it cool down. Put cap on and drive away. This seems to work like clockwork whenever I have any issues. Good luck! Hope this helps.

[MotionMan]

All you have to do is run it foer a few minutes, the low coolent may have exposed the temp sender and thats where the spike in the gage came from. This is coolant 101, they should have taken the 5 minutes to find out. I had a warrenty water pump on a Dodge, they didn't tighten a clamp and it slipped off. Huge steam and spike in temp and I was freaked out, I stopped and they towed it in.

[clamgulch]

After I rebuilt my heads and installed them in August, I got 125 miles before I popped one of the freeze plugs that I had replaced which resides under the valve cover. Drove 5 miles of freeway and noticed a lot of steam, but no overheating. 2 more miles into work and it was running crappy. Shut it down, opened the hood, no water in the gas bottle, but no water dripping. Pulled the dipstick and found my missing 3 gallons of water. Hadn't even put antifreeze back in it yet. Had to pull the engine and dismantle it to remove all the water and oil sludge (nasty- like changing dirty diapers). Started measuring while I was in there and now I'm rebuilding the bottom end. New pistons, rods, studs, etc. $6,000 ballpark.
I would say your inconvenience was probably tolerable. I'd fire my mechanic but I did the work...and the screwup.