ac/overheating

[Jonathan Moyer]

This is something I don't recall ever happening to me:

I was driving home this afternoon, through a rain shower that cooled the temps down a bit. I was running the air conditioner on max, going through an area known for it's smells from a paper plant. As the outside was cooling off, I switched the a/c over to vent, and immediately I get about 3-4 seconds of mist coming out of the dash vents. There was no smell to it, and I thought it was just plain water vapor. The a/c never did that before, but I checked all of my gauges and everything seemed okay. Now, when going up a good sized mountain, my check gauge light came on, and looking everything over, I see my engine temperature is high, almost to the red area. Coming over the top of the mountain, and on the rest of the way home, the temp stays high but a bit lower than I initially noticed it, and the check gauge goes out. The engine power seems to have decreased though. I parked it and checked the fluid in the resevoir, and it's just above the cold line. Also, my check engine light came on last night, havn't been able to get it looked at yet. Does anybody have any ideas to all this? I'm wondering if the high temps and the mist coming from the vents is related. The thermostat was replaced a few years ago, though it could easily have gotten stuck again.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Jon

 

[Benjamin Feinstein]

I have had the vapor happen before. My guess is the vapor was warmer moist air entering your cooler dry air in the trac.



As for the over heating if you had just stopped the trac and it was running hot the resevior should have had more fluid in it then what you stated. At the cold line the engine is just that cool and as the engine heats up the fluid expands and fills the resevior. Check the fluid level again when the engine has had a chance to cool off and see where the fluid is then and add some if needed. This may not be the issue but it cant hurt to check it out.