[Spridgets] Overheating Enigma with a PT Cruiser

Kirk Hargreaves khargreaves2 at gmail.com
Thu Aug 9 16:24:51 MDT 2012


My wife never wanted a particular car until the PT Cruiser came along . .
she like the "round shape" of the body.

That "round shape" has been the cause of a lot of problems for us.

After trading our 2001 model in the dealer discovered problems with the
rear suspension and the manual gear box (not the clutch).

I know this because my son was the finance mgr at that dealership per which
he said that we barely escaped some costly repairs and the dealer did not
find out until after we traded it in.

Then as stupid as we could be I bought her a new 2004 turbo.

Front wheel bearings gone at 74k miles. .  air pump gone at 75k. . .

Here is the question.  This last weekend we were driving from the Bay area
to So Cal when the car overheated 300 miles from home.  When I put alumni
seal in the system, it seemed to behave again . . but soon after it began
to over heat a second time.

Much money spent later . . . we rented a U Haul truck and dolly to get the
car back home.

It is now at my mechanics place . . a guy I have known and trusted for 17
years.  And he just told me that he cannot find the reason for the over
heating problem.  He replaced the thermostat and he tells me that it is not
the water pump.  It looks like the radiator is blocked . . . which he is
checking.  But he is not sure until he does some more testing. The temp
reading on the radiator was 190 at the top and 150 at the bottom.

Sounds kind of towards the low side (150 at the bottom) while the car is
under load and fully warmed up.

Maybe someone on the list has an idea as to what else could be checked?

Thanks. .  .

Kirk


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