alexh1266

... Keep my car running normal/cool ????

I replaced my sticking thermostat last July and has about 6k miles on it now. (I'm hoping still covered under warranty at Honda dealer).

Now my 00 TL is doing the same thing as before:
With my A/C on full blast and driving RPMs at about 4-5k for a few minutes causes the temp gauge to go up and begin to overheat. Luckily i keep a close eye on this gauge, and blasted the heater right away and let off the throttle.

What is the problem here? Is it possible that my oem replacement thermostat went bad already? Fluid levels look good both fans are working with the A/C on, i think the only thing to blame would be the thermostat again..

Please help guys... anybody had this happen to them?
Thanks in advance.

Karanx7

iTrader: (2)

What causes thermos to go bad? Tom said something about that in your last thread.

Either way, you should get a free thermo from the dealer. Parts warranty is 10k or 1 year, which ever comes first.

If you installed it yourself, then it's just 10k with no time limitation. I'm assuming you installed it yourself lol.

alexh1266

Thanks for the reply!
What does cause thermostats to go bad?

Actually this was dealer installed, so ill be going back tomorrow morning to see if its a bad thermostat or something else. I'm hoping its just the thermostat though.

Anyone else had a similar problem?

01tl4tl

could be plugged radiator
If you have to add cool fluid from the heater core, there is a serious problem

done the water pump/105 service yet?

01tl4tl

ck all your rad hoses and their offshoots to TB heat and cabin heat
one can be soft,, and suction pulls it down- restricts flow

feel for soft or hard spots along the entire length, and for any `bubbles`- similar to a tire sidewall burst in appearence

Rockstar21

iTrader: (1)

i dont live in cold weather... if mine goes bad, i usually just remove it... never had another issue...

rcb2000

that's not good for the motor actually, the temp will still be below normal operation temps

rcb2000

doubt that the problem is the t-stat, but if you are going to be taching the motor out all the time might want a high flow unit over the stock unit and I bet that there is an air pocket in the cooling passage that they did not get out when they installed the t-stat. Loose hose connections can lead to air being sucked into the system at high RPM as well.

01tl4tl

is the driver fan working by itself- with ac off? lets make sure where you lose cooling abilty

agree with rcb- maybe it needs to be burped! they had a hose clamp or 2 loose for the thermo install,,,
always recheck whatever was last done!

is the hose inside res cap firmly attached? it likes to fall off and no fluid transfer occurs after that! = system inop

alexh1266

Driver fan works by itself. It was on with the car off when I stopped at a gas station yesterday trying to cool the car down. This is whe I 1st noticed a problem.

it might need to be burped if I can't find a problem elsewhere. How do you burp th system? I know its simple and I read it somewhere before but I forgot.

Hoses seem to be attached firmly as well. I'm lost.

Rockstar21

iTrader: (1)

tell that to my accord wagon that went 200k miles without rolling into a shop
it was barely 1 notch below normal temperature with the thermo in. (on both the wagon and 99 TL)

im not spreading any false information, just stating that i have had the same issue before with multiple thermo's and cars.. and MY cars drover properly and maintained reliability throughout ownership.

alexh1266

Not the results I wanted.... especially from the dealer

Took about 3 hours for the Honda dealer to diagnose my problem. They took it on a test drive to see if they could recreate it, and they found nothing. I told them it only happens with A/C on and 4k-5k rpms. So they did this with the car in park, and got the temp gauge to go only 3/4ths, so they say.

They called me to pick up my car and said there was nothing wrong with it. They told me that this was normal operating temp for the load of stress being put on the car. I immediately called that B.S. and said that it never did that before! He said the technicians couldn't find anything wrong with it and said it was normal for "this type of car." I asked if there was a weak hose, or possibly a hose that is not firmly attached that could be sucking in air, causing it to not cool off properly and overheat. Honda's response was "no."

If Honda can't find the problem, then who can.
Apparently my local mechanic... well maybe.

Took it to my local mechanic, and told him the symptoms.
All in all took him about five minutes. He inspected the hoses with some type of laser thing, that looked kinda cool. I'm guessing he was checking the pressure with that thing. He said it could be the thermostat, and I explained to him that it was replaced about 6k ago. He said the only other thing it could be is the water pump.

Does this sound like a water pump problem?

Im a little under 190k miles, and the tbelt and wp job was done originally at around 115k (bought the car at 113k in 06)

I will attempt to "burp the system" tomorrow and see what that does for me. I just need some help on how to do that.

Someone help plz

alexh1266

Ok so I noticed while sitting at idle with no A/C that both fans will turn on.
Is this normal? I thought the passenger side was only suppose to turn on with the A/C on?

could this possibly be a bad radiator fan motor on the driver side?
Or a bad relay or sensor or something?

dc2kid

iTrader: (2)

i have the same problem if you do figure it out let me know but mine the temp only goes up if its really hot outside other then that i can blast the ac and nothing happens

alexh1266

Yea that's pretty much when mine does it too. Since it was like 95 yesterday and 102 today in my area

alexh1266

Anybody?

alexh1266

I'm going to go ahead and assumse this is a fan switch problem.
Going to replace that and see what happens.

Driver rad fan works with the a/c on, but I've yet to notice it working all on its own.
I burped the system yesterday and I noticed a lot of small bubbles at the top of the radiator. And it looked like only a small amount of fluid from the top of the rad went down. Does this mean I got some air out?

01tl4tl

is the driver fan running for more than 1-2 minutes after normal temp shutdown...
like 10-15 minutes?
thats likely the `fan temp sensor` it screws into passenger side lower corner of rad

your tech probably used a laser pointer temp guage, (harbor freight to the rescue)
if one rad hose is hot and the other cool- thermostat bad,,even brand new parts fail!

you got a little air out!!
remove rad cap, start car- heater to full hot, fan on high
open the windows~
let temp come up and should operate driver fan for 15-60 seconds then it goes off,,,a few more minutes go by and it cycles again

ck fluid level in rad- top off- rev to 2000 and hold there until fan cycles on and off
twice, gently reduce rpm and ck level in rad

Now with you outside: bring rpm up to 1800-2000 again and observe the flow rate thru the radiator
Low flow, little change between idle and rev is water pump not putting out at low rpm
or clogged hoses

reduce to idle gently= so coolant doesnt backwash onto you and scald your upper body
--2nd degree burns really suck

install rad cap with engine running, ck res bottle is half full/ or half empty (for the pessimist group)
ck hose inside res cap on tight.. no cracks anywhere on its length back to rad
shut off car
ck both levels in the morning
Done!!

your TL temp should NEVER go above half--honda and acura are not the same for this so their techs wouldnt know what to look for, our temp never never varies,,always 1-2 lines below half

I dont care if its in the mountains 100 degrees, ac blasting for the last 3 hours,,
thats called a day trip to reno for ziners in my area~

temp is stable stable stable,,only thing moving is the fuel level and the gps

They should have visually ckd the water pump- it has a `weep hole` designed to let coolant out when the pumps shaft seal fails
then a pressure test of the system,,if it loses pressure its got a leak- duhhhhh

with the `tensioned belt system` you dont get the wobble and noise of yesteryears water pump failure,,like on an 80s chevy 350
you cant grab the pump and ck for movement anymore (not very well)

so loss of coolant, temp rise when at idle,,
was the 105 done with acura water pump? or aftermarket?
severe duty only gives 60kmiles between pump and belt changes
an aftermarket pump, 60 would be average life

could be a tensioner not keeping belt speed correct??/ (wild guess thrown in)

alexh1266

Both the driver and passenger fan have been running together after turning the car off.
But definetly not longer than 1-2 minutes.

My tech didn't notice a difference in the hoses and said they were fine.
So the thermo should be fine.

I will def burp the system again as I definetly didn't do all that you mentioned.
The owner's manual wasn't very detailed at all.

I also tried to explain to Honda about the temperature gauge and that it should never go above 2 ticks below half no matter what I'm doing. I also explained to them that that has never happened before. I they still said it was "normal"

I'm pretty sure they didn't do a pressure test on the system or even bother to check the waerpump. Id like to think they did though.

The tbelt wp job was done at my tech's shop way back in the day when I didn't know much about oem parts. I doubt it was an oem wp.

I just ordered some parts for the tbelt job including. Both tensioners, both belts, and the idler. My bro in law is a honda tech and said he would change out the parts, with an oil change, trans fluid change, coolant change for $150. I paid $350 for parts so about $500 for the whole job. Which isn't bad at all. I'm hoping the new wp is going to solve my problem.

alexh1266

Rad was topped off when i started, this is how it looked when I finished!

alexh1266

So the temp gauge got to 3/4ths again with the A/C on and 4-5k rpms. I turned off the A/C and the car (I was in the driveway holding the rpms when it happened)

When I turned off the car both fans were on and working. After a while the A/C fan turned off and just the driver side fan remained on. I put the key in the ignition and turned it (not fully to turn the car on) just enough to see the temp gauge and it was about 1-2 ticks above half, but I noticed when I turned the key that the driver fan immediately stopped despite the fact that it was still above half on the temp gauge. Is this normal? Could it be a relay or sensor?

Overheating problems are becoming extremely frustrating btw.

TLer trash

You said in post 17, that the driver side fan comes on with the ac. BOTH FANS have to come on with the ac, or you'll overheat in hot weather. If you overheat, both fans will also come on. Figure out why both fans aren't coming on with the ac, and you probably won't overheat

alexh1266

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant to say that both fans work with the A/C, but I've yet to notice the driver fan work by itself with the A/C off.

But today I notice it working. So no problem there.

There are no leaks in the system. No loss of coolant.
I'm running out of ideas. Back to square one I guess.

Going to get the tbelt and wp job done next Friday.
Going to have my bro in law (honda tech) do a pressure test and recheck the thermostat that's in there. The thermo is about 1 yr old but new parts do fail as 01tl4tl said. Might just replace that to see what happens anyways.

alexh1266

On to a new theory. Bad head gasket!
Fluid looks new and looks like there is nothing wrong with it.
But if I base this slowly off fluid color I would be probably wrong.

When I checked the reservoir tank I noticed a lot of dirt / mud inside of it.
Also, when I pulled out the hose in the tank to see if it was attached firmly and to check for any cracks I noticed a lot of gunky looking mud on it. So could this be my overheating problem?

alexh1266

Well, its going in on Friday for the tbelt and wp job. Going to have the thermo changed again and going to change the fan switch.

I got around to checking the fluid levels as my car sits parked for 5-6 days a week. Reservoir looked low after taking out the air in the rad system so I just removed the whole reservoir and drained it. I took a hose with some decent pressure to wash out the dirt from the inside. Towards the top of the tank there was a lot of gunk, oil like, that didn't want to come out. I just reached my finger in there and removed what I could manually. I got most of it out. I refilled the res tank to the Max cold line.

I'm going to observe the fluids for a while and see what happens. I checked the oil and it looked normal. No mixture there of oil and coolant.

From the pictures posted above, does it look like I would have a bad head gasket? The radiator looks a little brownish at the top, but then again I don't know if this is normal for the car and its age. Also considering the amount of dirt I removed from the res tank, leaves me a little curious.

I know the only way to tell if there is a bad head gasket is to actually look at the gasket itself to be 100% sure.

What do you guys think?

01tl4tl

A: who told you to rev the car to 5k in the driveway-thats not good for your overheating prob
2k rpm to get it warm to normal temp so fan cycles,,not running ac at the time--this is to burp the system

B: there are several test of head gaskets- visual being last. A sniffer or color changing substance can be used over the rad cap opening- looking for carbon monoxide
Or compression ck with sudden 2 cylinders together drop
those are the fastest and cheapest

With all the gunk you found in the res, I would flush the rad and engine while doing the wp, but wp is likely culprit overall

temp gurus: would a thermostat installed pointed in the wrong direction do this?
those honda guys didnt know much about a TL...

01tl4tl

you cleaned or replaced the `inside the res hose`?
ck its along the length to rad too, plugged anywhere is a problem

alexh1266

Just cleaned the hose inside the reservoir tank. It was gunky on the outside but not clogged.

A: Sorry

B: yea plan on doing a rad fluid flush and oil change along with trans fluid flush while doing the wp job.

That's a good question about the thermo I wonder if Honda did install it backwards?
I'm going to have it replaced anyways along with the fan switch.

I noticed that the drivers side fan doesn't come on at idle very often.
With the car warmed up @ 2 ticks below half the fan won't come on at idle.
Instead both fans will come on every 80 seconds or so only after reving to 1800-2000 rpm for a minute and letting go, and they will remain on for 15 seconds. Sound normal?

rcb2000

and let me guess your one of those guys that gets less than 300 miles a tank full too. No T-stat means coolant flows all of the time and for it to be one notch below normal is a bunch of horse shit. Now if your driving in a desert 24/7 then you might be able to get by with it.

01tl4tl

alex: I think you have a bad fan temp sensor, plus a few other cooling probs

sitting at idle and normal temp = driver side fan should cycle every few--within 5 minutes if ~80 degrees out,,on for a maybe a minute or even less and then off for several minutes
based on my car in normal use and when burping system

When a slight temp increase is detected by the sensor, it activates the fan so temp doesnt even change far enough for the guage to move!

once temp rises, you have to think- where am I losing cooling ability?
BEFORE the wp job etc,
Have tech run test on head gaskets- the sniffer or the color change stuff
That oily drop in rad doesnt look good and could be an early sign over too many overheats
the head gaskets dont like that at all- and repeated past 1/2,,past 3/4 and dumping cold fluid from heater into system.......= bad news
if redlined= plan on doing both sides to be safe

01tl4tl

you may have hurt this motor--thats why I say to get head gasket leak testing first!
before spending money on anything!

If those are bad, and the heads have been warped from repeated overheats, thats expensive!
At that point- its cheaper to get a used engine from the auto recycler aka junkyard
and do the wp service on it,,then drop in and enjoy
IF yours fails compression on both sides, and the other test now---swap engine is smarter and less dollars than fixing yours

alexh1266

Ok so where to start.

Took it to my bro-in-law, the "honda tech" guy, and regret it. The tbelt and wp job was done ($350 parts $150 labor). Dude totaly fucked up my new ps pump and it whines now. I tried to get all the air out by locking wheels left to right for 5 seconds on each side for a few mintues, and it still makes noise. I'm guessing he over tightened the belt. I called him and told him it didn't do that before and that I was extremely upset over this! I told him that he ruined the bearings and they need to be fixed now. So he is going to "look" at it next weekend and attempt to fix it. I'm hoping at his expense becuase that is ridiculous!

Now add another $250 dollars including labor for new thermostat, fan switch, and completely new radiator hoses including bypass hoses and heater hoses, and all new clamps. This will also get done next week.

$750 dollars later what do I get? Now a bad ballast that was just changed less than 6 months ago. Who to blame? That's right you guessed correctly, "honda tech" guy, he washed my car, trying to do something good I guess, but that wasn't even done correctly as there was water all over the ballast! I swapped igniters from left to right and same problem on the same side remains. Light went out on me last night while driving home. I didn't even notice until I pulled in my driveway and saw the reflection!

Wow "honda guys" are terrible. They totally have no clue of what goes on in Acura cars. Especially the 2nd gen TL!

This car is beginning to be a lot of headaches!
Ok I'm done now. FML!!

01tl4tl

ahhh is he the Oil Change tech at honda?

awesome labor rate for the job,,,,,sometimes/always you get what you pay for,
and people are worth what they charge

Acura ps different than honda~ no doubt the pump is damaged

to burp air from ps during fluid flush, place cardboard under front wheels to reduce friction
start engine and turn wheel to full lock- no need to hold it there where YOU are straining the pump, just hit lock- wait a few secinds and back to other full lock for a few seconds
that will move any air out and up thru the res

ballast- well we all know the ballast and the `power controller` silver box are way too easy to kill with water
Aftermarket sells waterproof parts!~ hidextra.com = good source on the cheap

what about the radiator itself? take it out and and send to radiator shop for teardown and cleaning-reassemble and pressure test = like new when they are done!!
(now I have to go ck if we have plastic sides on rad- cost changes and replace may be cheaper))

Hoses: I would agree- these cars are getting older and anywhere near 10 years for hoses is more than reasonable, in my opinion
a blown hose can kill the engine
I have see bypass hoses and heater hoses spring a small leak,,,eventually the engine was the subject of long term overheating and death

01tl4tl

alex- are you without space to work on the car, or need some diy help?
most of whats left to do is total DIY with a screwdriver and socket set!

there are ziners everywhere- many willing to assist or offer a garage

alexh1266

I have no clue if he is or isnt the oil change guy. But based on his work, I wouldn't doubt it.

Yea 99.9% sure the ps pump is damaged. He said he was going to take care of it for me and replace the bearings and o-rings. Now after he does this, how should he reposition the belt? Is there a certain spec I should tell him?

The ballast is still under warranty so, he's going to take care of that for free as well. Ill go aftermarket when the warranty is out and needs replacing again. I have hidextra on my civic and love them.

Yup, time for new hoses. After all that it will be pressure tested again. I'm also 90% sure its the fan sensor. The car overheats when its turned off. Goes up to 3/4ths, so the fan doesn't work when the car is turned off.

Let's see how it goes next weekend. As of now I'm not a happy camper.

01tl4tl

no fan at shutoff = replace bad fan sensor = most of your problems may go away!!

dc2kid

iTrader: (2)

wheres the fan sensor located on the rad?

alexh1266

Depends on year.
My 00 is located by the thermostat.
Others have it located at the lower corner of passenger side.

My fans were working with the car off last week when the problem occured. But my guess is that the sensor just finally completely crapped out. The fans aren't sensing the rise in temp at shut off so they're not running at the right times. Best logic I can think of. I think that makes sense. Right?

It just might affect overheating at high rpms / full load with a/c if its not sensing the correct temps and coming on at the wrong time.

By any chance does the fan have different speeds of operation? This would make more sense to me when it comes to overheating with both fans on. Other than that I got nothing???

01tl4tl

only driver side fan runs at engine shutdown
normal operation the driver fan runs as needed
ac on- both fans run

that sensor is a common failure and without extra fan to carry away heat,= under load, the rad temp increases

01tl4tl

the fan has off, normal speed, and sluggish before it fails