 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / General Car Topics / December 2004Air in Cooling System
My wife just had the cooling system on her 2001 Lincoln Continental flushed and the coolant replaced (routine 45,000 mile maintenance). After driving a few miles, the engine overheated. She immediately pulled over and shut down. After it cooled, she limped back to the dealer...hearing a gurgling sound from the engine compartment. The temperature, however, stayed in the normal zone. They're going to work on it tomorrow. The service technician believes all the air wasn't bled out of the system, and a giant air bubble got trapped, causing an overheat. Some coolant was sprayed on top of the engine, so I assume the extra air vented through the coolant filler tank when it overheated. Since she stopped right away, he didn't think the engine was damaged. A similar thing happened to my 1999 Villager a month ago (same dealer) after replacing the coolant. The heater at 90 degrees was blowing cold air intermittently. They re-bled the system, all was okay. The technician said with today's cars, it's almost impossible to get all the air out of the cooling system. I asked if I should expect that it done properly for $65 an hour, and he said it's not a reliable procedure So, I said, "You just do it ...and then hope for the best?" I should emphasize that this is a highly reputable and dependable Ford deale r(in MN) who has always done excellent work on our cars...going back 14 years. I assume there's a detailed procedure for bleeding and refilling the cooling system. Is it possible the mechanic simply took a few shortcuts? Thanks! Scott A shortcut in that he didn't do one or two steps at all. That's pretty short. Some cars prove pretty difficult to get all the air out, but that shouldn't be accepted as an excuse for doing an incomplete job. Dealers should know exactly which cars are the troubled ones and be prepared to do what needs to be done when the car is taken in to do the work. Usually, the air will travel to the highest point in the entire coolant system and should be purged at that point. The engine needs to be run while in the shop until the thermostat opens fully and the engine needs to be run at higher rpm at that moment with the purge point opened (on and off) to let the air out. The heater controls should be set to full heat (although many cars don't valve the hot water anymore for temperature control) to get the air out of the heater core. And, this won't guarantee 100% purge, but should keep the engine from overheating. Always check your coolant level after driving a few miles after this process, as it may take some time to get that last bit of air out. > My wife just had the cooling system on her 2001 Lincoln Continental > flushed and the coolant replaced (routine 45,000 mile maintenance). After [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > Thanks! > Scott Dealer shops are flat rate shops - the tech gets a set amount for the job reguardless of how long the job takes. This generates problem One, because most techs do the job as fast as possible to make the best dollar, and that means taking short cuts. Problem Two - Getting air out of some systems can be a drawn out procedure and flatrate time doesn't allow for the extra time called for to thoroughly cycle a system and dealerships are not social clubs - no one likes to work for free. Problem Three - you took the car to a dealer for non warrantee work and you paid twice the price for half a mundane job. There's a moral in here somewhere. Like one Chrysler dealership told me after I complained about a shoddy job, "we got your money - f.ck off". This is an exact quote. Consider a local shop for off warrantee work. They are more loikely to bend over backwards to keep your buisness. How much extra warranty did he offer for the 100,000 miles they just took off the engine's life? Overheating enough to blow coolant is bad news on an engine and can turn it into an instant oil user. Watch really carefully for a puff of smoke on the morning start up, that's the first sign the valve seals got cooked out. If you have an oil pressure gauge and it reads any lower or is swingy now and wasn't before, suspect main bearing damage. If the plugs start fouling or you get a miss, suspect blown head gasket or cooked rings. Mike 86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's > My wife just had the cooling system on her 2001 Lincoln Continental > flushed and the coolant replaced (routine 45,000 mile maintenance). After [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > Thanks! > Scott Mike, Those are very interesting comments. Now I'm getting worried. We returned to the dealer today, because my wife feels the heater blower fan is not blowing as forcefully as it used to. There's plenty of heat when set at 90F, but not the air volume... especially noticeable on the front windshield defrost setting. On the Contintental, I believe the heater fan is tied into the engine temp, since it normally won't blow air at top speed when the engine is cold. Also, the temperature gauge (when the engine is fully warmed up) is not in the middle of the normal range, but only goes up 1/3 of the way into the normal range. I know on my Villager minivan, the temp gauge is always right in the middle. I don't know if it's related, or just the colder MN weather, but on the highway today (about 15 miles), she only got 16.9 mpg. (That's starting with the gauge reset to 0 mpg. Normally, she gets 20-22+ mpg. We talked with a tech, and she said the thermostat might be going bad, and we should bring the vehicle in tomorrow to be checked over. She also said that air left in the cooling system is very common after flushing the system...although an overheated engine is rare. The car was test driven right afterwards from the warm shop. After it sat outside in 20F weather for an hour or so, we picked it up, and it overheated right after that. I supposed the coolant contracted while sitting outside. This 2001 Continental has only 43,000 miles on it and has been treated with great care by my wife. It's disheartening to know that the engine may have been damaged. The service tech said if it had been driven many miles with the temperature gauge pegged on Hot, then the engine would be damaged, but for just a few miles it wouldn't. I'm not so sure. It was only driven 3 miles from the dealership when the low coolant light came on the the temperature gauge maxed out. What should we ask the dealer to do, as far as future engine problems resulting from this incident? Thanks much! Scott > How much extra warranty did he offer for the 100,000 miles they just > took off the engine's life? [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > 86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 > 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's >This 2001 Continental has only 43,000 miles on it and has been treated >with great care by my wife. It's disheartening to know that the engine [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >It was only driven 3 miles from the dealership when the low coolant >light came on the the temperature gauge maxed out. Consider that engine toast. You'll probably be replacing the engine at 50,000 miles or sooner. Do you believe a service tech that just f.cked up your car? He's telling you what he knows you want to hear, not the truth. I'd go to that dealer, raise living hell, and demand a complete replacement engine, including the radiator, heater core, and all hoses. All of these items have been damaged and will soon fail. If they refuse, insist on a complete replacement new car. If they still refuse, contact your lawyer and sue their pants off. Also, if you paid for that shoddy work with a credit card or check, stop payment immediately. They don't know what they are doing, and should be shut down for performing poor to extremely bad service work. One additional note. Besides the damage to the engine and cooling system parts, your transmission may have been damaged. The transmission is also cooled by the same radiator, thus you may have cooked the transmission fluid to the point of damaging the transmission. To thoroughly satisfy that you are protected, I'd also insist that a replacement transmission be installed. Wow.... So it really sounds like it got hot enough to start destroying parts like the thermostat, that's too bad and doesn't bode well for the future. If it got that hot, then I would guess the 'rubber' valve seals also got seriously baked. I can't advise you what to legally do, but it might be worth a call to a lawyer to find out what help ot advise they can give you. I seriously would be wanting some kind of extended warranty though.... Mike > Mike, > [quoted text clipped - 59 lines] > > 86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 > > 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's > Wow.... > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Mike Mike, Today the temerature gauge moved up to just below the halfway mark, so it looks like the thermostat is working properly. We took it back to the dealer today. As for the heater air not blowing strongly enough, the tech pulled off the covering over the air blower intake under the hood and found a dead mouse and a very dirty filter, which they replaced. Now it blows just fine. This is a totally unrelated issue, which they fixed for free. I talked with the service manager, and right up front, he admitted there is a small chance there could be engine damage. Previously, I called another service manager of a large Lincoln dealeship in Minneapolis, and he said that cars built since 1995 are designed to show a warning light before the engine reaches the point of damage. My wife did shut the engine off right away, so she wasn't driving it after it overheated. At that point, the air bubble had cleared, and the temperature returned to normal. The engine still purrs like a kitten and appears to be running normally. There's no sign of oil-related smoke from the exhaust from a cold start. Anyway, the service manager asked us to drive the car for a week and then bring it in, and they will check it over to see if there are any leaks or signs of damage. Afterwards, he will definitely write me a letter stating the dealer takes responsibility for any future engine problems like excessive oil consumption, leaking gaskets, bearing seals, etc. He also noted that we are long time customers (14 years), and they will do right by us. We also know the family that owns the dealership, and their integrity is A-1. They're not dodging any responsibility, and I don't want to assume the worst. We'll keep a close eye on engine performance and hold their feet to the fire if anything goes wrong. It seems fair to me. Scott |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.