tb87

Man I have had some really bad luck with this car. It's a 96 Acura TL. You can see my other posts for a more detailed history, but this is what I've had to fix/replace over the past 3 months or so that I've had it:

1. Blower motor
2. Battery
3. Alternator and belts
4. Spark plugs and wires
5. Crankshaft pulley

Obviously the blower motor and the pulley were the major pains, and I'm afraid I've got another one coming up: the heater core. But I really, really hope there's something I can do to fix it without dropping another grand or so. If not, I'm really not sure what I'll do with the car. It has 245k miles on it, but I thought I got a decent deal on it because it ran great when the previous owner let me test drive it and continued to run great for a few weeks after I bought it. After that, it's been nothing but a pain in the ass. I guess the previous owner knew something I didn't.

So enough complaining from me lol... here's what happened the other day. I was getting some lunch, idling in a drive thru, when the car suddenly started making a "spewing" sound and the white steam/smoke started coming up from under the dash/steering wheel and through the vents. I'm not familiar with how antifreeze smells but I'm pretty sure that's what it was.

I should have shut it off immediately (hindsight is 20/20), but I couldn't see the temperature gauge through the white steam. As soon as I saw the gauge though (it was in the red) I shut off the car, pissing off everyone in line behind me lol... I'm not sure how long it was in the red, but I would assume it wasn't long enough to damage anything as I was able to slowly get the car back home, and it seemed to run fine other than overheating. I of course turned the heat on full blast and didn't let it get in the red again on the way back home, although it did get close a couple of times.

I'm really, really hoping it's just a bad/damaged hose or something leaking coolant from when the other repairs were made, and not the heater core. If anyone knows what the actual problem is and if there's a relatively cheap way to fix it, I'm all ears! If I can just drive the car for a year or so without having to drop another $500-$1000 on it, I'll be happy.

pro_found973.2TL

check ur heater core hoses right in front of the firewall on the driver side...see if it starts squirting coolant when the car gets close to normal temp. what happens is the coolany sprays everywhere and turns to that thick white steam when it hits the exhaust manifold and it forms a huge thick cloud quick. i had this problem a few months ago. the metal clamp over the years of vibrating against the rubber hose caused a tiny slit to form and when the car would get up to normal temp and pressure it would start spraying like crazy..took me about 10 mins to fix...just unclamped the hose, cut it and reattached it. its hard to find tho u gotta look very very close. im just saying thats a possibility. if not, looks like u got a major problem.

tb87

Would that be on the engine side of the firewall or steering wheel side? I would assume steering wheel side unless there's some way all that smoke could make it into the vents from the engine side.

zypkode

My 96 Acura TL 2.5 overheated in Jan 2012.I had to replace the Radiator Coolant Fan Switch on the Radiator.The Temp Needle suppose to go up 3/4 of the way up and the fan suppose to kick in and bring the Temp down.Replacing the Radiator Coolant Fan Switch is not hard to do.

Dean Ramey

I was really hoping someone had given you a great response to this because I'm trouble shooting the same problem right now on my 98 TL.

Natske

I would first check the radiator lines since there are 2 little ones that come in next to the blower assembly, Since the engine is getting hot it may be a few issues but I would check hose condition since rubber detoriates over time. The thermostat is probably the first place I would check with the over heating, Sometimes a damaged head gasket can cause that too but it is too early to tell.

1997TL-P

sounds like a head gasket problem. I remeber the first day that shit blew white foggish mist through my vents I tripped thinking it was a terrorist threat from up above! anthrax or something, but soon after that I started having overheating problems. It started to overheat really bad and it would push all the coolant out through the resvoir. Took about 3 days to figure it out in my shop, but did it.....I came across this sealant that is number 1 in the nation.........it worked, I trust it.............i would like to recommend BLUE DEVIL GASKET SEALENT! I have 145kmiles on it yes I know that is early but I have a good amount of stuff under the hood and run it hard, but if so that will work, it's $64 and it will do the job, just follow the direction no matter what. mine is a 6cyl, but just curious if it happened to you and have you solved it yet?