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Engine heating up and almost stalling in traffic


will_s95
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When sitting in traffic for too long, the engine heats up to about 240ish and the idle drops to about 500 then comes back up to 900 repeatedly, at about 1 second intervals. The car feels like its about to stall. It only does this when the engine gets hot.

 

When I am moving, the temp gauge stays right at 210. Once I get out of traffic and drive for a while allowing the engine to cool I have no problems.

 

I decided to do a little self diagnosis on the issue. I opened the hood and let the car idle in park for a good 6 minutes or so, letting the engine heat up. Only one radiator fan came on at around the 240 mark, and the engine did not cool down. No matter how hot it gets, I can only get one fan to turn on. Im sure if I let it idle at a standstill for longer, it would overheat and stall.

 

I tried powering each one individually with a 12v power supply, they both spun. Next, I checked the relays. I swapped them around, and they both work fine. Using my power supply to bridge the relay contacts, I discovered one relay plug activated the the driver side fan, and the other one activated both. Are there any other fuses I could check anywhere? I know the fans turning on can be related to AC, and my car does not have a compressor.

 

:think:

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that surging can mess with your voltage. especially the rad fan. it will continuously dip below 12 volts and heat up the wires and corrode the terminals. possibly all the way to the pcm. and throw it into limp mode possibly. its basically a huge strain on everything when that happens.

 

I would look at the key wire.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Okay so I got my fans re wired and now they work fine when I drive and my engine temp stays where it should (I got a coolant change as well)

 

Now a new issue is arising. The fan does not turn off after I turn off the car and pull the key out. I thought maybe it was supposed to happen until I didn't notice it happened at work today and it drained my battery and I had to jump start my car.

 

What could be casing this?

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I had that happen with poor grounds and weak or bad batteries. I think the car was in limp mode or something. since I started the car and shut it off again and the fan stopped.

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