Wonderin if anyone could please help me out a little bit. Ok here is the problem. So about a month ago I noticed that my temp. gauge would start reading really high, so I would check the engine and it would be cool. Over the last few weeks the problem has started to get worse, with the temp. saying that I was overheating, only to go down and really flucuate. Even at night, I would drive down the street and it would say I was overheating for a while, and then go down and back up again. The next problem that I have noticed with this is that my fluid levels have been going very low and sometimes I notice that the fluid is almost completely drained from the resevour. The fan and everything else is working properly, I just replaced the actual tank where the fluid is kept, and a vacuum hose which seemed to help where it does not overheat so fast, but the gauge still reads over time that the car is overheating, which in many cases i know that it is not due to only driving it for 2 or 3 minutes. I have been told to replace my thermostat, anyone have any idea what could be wrong?? BTW, the car is a 2000 dodge neon with about 80thou and some change. I get the oil changed every 3k miles, and to my knowledge there is nothing seriously wrong with the ride, except the problem listed. PLease let me know.

 

My advice to you is this: change the thermostat. Not many cures can be done with a $10 part and 15 minutes work, but this is one of them. This is one of those problems that without actually seeing the car it is hard to diagnose. So let's do a LITTLE bit of tria and error here. The most common failure part (thermostat) is also one of the cheapest and easieast to fix. Go with that and report back. If the problem persists, then we can go deeper into testing.

Jeff