Overheating like so many others!

[shamilton84]

Hi all! This may be long so please bear with me. I have a 2007 Cruiser that's driving me crazy. It started overheating and the AC would blow hot. I replaced the radiator fan and thermostat because those were the cheapest and easiest fixes. It worked for 3 months then stopped. So I figured the fan was crap and got another replacement. This time, it died the same day. So I don't know if I'm just having the worst luck with fans or if I need to delve deeper. The symptoms are as follows: the check engine light came on for a couple days this time but has since gone out, it idles rough if I turn on the air and blows hot, the rpms drop significantly when the fan tries to kick on and of course the temp gauge keeps climbing if I'm not moving. I've read so many other threads and nothing seems to match my stupid car so I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. Thanks for any help!

[JoeX]

Originally Posted by shamilton84

Hi all! This may be long so please bear with me. I have a 2007 Cruiser that's driving me crazy. It started overheating and the AC would blow hot. I replaced the radiator fan and thermostat because those were the cheapest and easiest fixes. It worked for 3 months then stopped. So I figured the fan was crap and got another replacement. This time, it died the same day. So I don't know if I'm just having the worst luck with fans or if I need to delve deeper. The symptoms are as follows: the check engine light came on for a couple days this time but has since gone out, it idles rough if I turn on the air and blows hot, the rpms drop significantly when the fan tries to kick on and of course the temp gauge keeps climbing if I'm not moving. I've read so many other threads and nothing seems to match my stupid car so I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. Thanks for any help!

Check the wiring harness connector to the fans for damage inside the connector, also check for voltage when the fan should be on.
If you over heat the engine you will have more problems than you want to deal with.

[ptcruisersteve]

On one of the new radiator fans I got from RockAuto I found one of the pins in the radiator fan plug much deeper than the other pins. Check the radiator fan plug as JoeX posted. Post what you find out.

[shamilton84]

I checked the harness and didn't see any defects. I did look at my coolant again and the reservoir was empty so I added some. I haven't been able to test my car however because my garage door is broken and I can't lift it by myself lol. Once I'm able to run it, I'll post another update, hopefully it's just the coolant this time (and then I'll feel like an idiot for not checking the obvious first lmao).

[ptcruisersteve]

Originally Posted by shamilton84

I checked the harness and didn't see any defects. I did look at my coolant again and the reservoir was empty so I added some. I haven't been able to test my car however because my garage door is broken and I can't lift it by myself lol. Once I'm able to run it, I'll post another update, hopefully it's just the coolant this time (and then I'll feel like an idiot for not checking the obvious first lmao).

Did you check the radiator fan plug?

[WrenchnIswhatIdo]

I was going another direction...v../\..

I just got a car that was over heating & loosing water...
What do you do when you car start using water.?
thats right Stop Leak.!..(what a mess)
Found out they popped head gasket.!

futher investigation
under heavy demands the lower radiator hose was week getting sucked flat starving the engine of coolant overheating ....No Bueno
.
.

[ptcruisersteve]

Originally Posted by WrenchnIswhatIdo

I was going another direction...v../\..

I just got a car that was over heating & loosing water...
What do you do when you car start using water.?
thats right Stop Leak.!..(what a mess)
Found out they popped head gasket.!

futher investigation
under heavy demands the lower radiator hose was week getting sucked flat starving the engine of coolant overheating ....No Bueno
.
.

With my friends PT Cruisers if I get any indication of overheating at all first thing I do is check the radiator fan. Always check the root cause of the problem first. Never had my PT Cruisers overheat. Most of the time it always trigger the P0480 or P0481 code and I just replace the radiator fan immediately after checking the wiring.

It's always a good idea to replace the radiator hoses when you change the engine coolant.

[chuzz]

Have you checked or replaced the coolant temperature sensor?

[Chip18sw]

There is a "small chance" that it could be an air bubble in the system?? In any case renting a Radiator Pressure Tester from an Auto Store could not hurt. It might possibly be a split seam in the radiator, it would open p nder pressure and disappear when the motor cools down.

[shamilton84]

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this and I appreciate all the tips. Here is where I'm at now. Water didn't help unfortunately. My engine light came on and I finally went to AutoZone to pull my codes. I got P0480 and P0481. I'm confused what these are. It gives the description "Low speed fan relay control circuit" and "fan 2 control circuit" respectively. Where is the relay control circuit? And why would it throw a code for fan 2 when there is only one fan? Any more help on this old thread would be appreciated!