you wouldnt happen to have what seems like a very minor fluid leak from the water pump would you???? seems unlikely that the waterpump failed all of a sudden like that, but i have to ask bc we jsut went thru that crap w/ my sisters car last year, seriously who the hell thought a plastic impeller on a metallic shaft was a good design for a water pump in a car?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!! (my sisters beetle, not these trucks that i know of)

 

Off topic... But Shrps, is your sister's car a VW? Last fall I dealt with the crumbled plastic impeller on me wife's Jetta... Horrible design!

 

yup vw beetle w/ the itty bitty 2.0 I4, the impeller cracked into 3 or 4 big pieces and a bunch of tiny ones and was laying in the bottom of the opening in the block. we let a shop do that one since 1 we would have taken a few days in that engine bay, and 2 its driven by the timing belt which is NOT something my dad was interested in messing w/ on an interference engine.

not that im complaining there is exactly 0 room to work in that engine bay

 

I'll check my water pump but i'm pretty sure its working fine. and i dont think my thermostat is bad. both my ac and heat work and both the upper and lower radiator hoses heat up so the thermostat isn't stuck closed.

and its not leaking from the t stat housing. for those that dont know the t stat is in the lower front passenger side of the engine bay it kinda sucks...

 

you would know it if your water pump was leaking... durango water pumps have metal impellers... my waterpump went catastrophic on me... failed without me knowing... when my dad and i pulled it off the engine block had this nice scored circular groove on it... plastic blades... leave it to vw *shakes head*

 

Well i was talking to my friend and he told me about something called spark knock? we were talking about octanes and i looked up spark knock. i think mine knocks sometimes. i've heard it.

Could that have something to do with it over heating? also i NEVER get any highway driving out of her. theres never a need. all my driving is stop and go city driving. would this have an effect on why i'm overheating? I know its bad to not get highway driving.

 

lack of highway driving wouldnt cause overheating, and ftr when these pumps go u can usually (not always of course) see some fluid leaking out at the shaft that goes into the engine(idk how else to describe it)

also even w/ a closed thermostat you will still have heat, the heater core is a seperate set of hoses than the ones controlled by the t-stat.

another thought, get a non contact infrared thermometer and use that to measure the radiator from top to bottom the temp should decrease smoothly, if you have hot spots then that could be your problem.

 

if your t-stat is bad it will heat up on the highway thats why i was asking

 

So i drove it to work since i only work like 3-4 miles away and she was over heating on my way home. i turned the heat on and it would work. it was blowing out cold air. So now my heat doesn't work.

Than when i got home i opened up the hood and there was steam coming up from the drivers side of the radiator. on the drivers side of the radiator towards the bottom. I think there might be a leak from down there? but it is directly below that little over flow hose.

Any ideas guys? I don't wanna pay 100 bucks for a coolant flush how would i go about flushing all the fluid out at home?