September 17th, 2011
Day 1
Have a 2002 Oldsmobile Silhouette 3.4L. The heater don’t seem to be working correctly. Noticed that the temperature gauge will go from almost 3/4 of a full gauge down to just over 1/4 and when it does the heater works good. when it is raising up to the 3/4 spot it don’t blow out as hot of air as before. From what I have read on the Internet it maybe a thermostat, an air bubble in the coolant line, or low on coolant. So rather than mess around with it all day. A new thermostat is only $10 so I am just going to replace it and fill up the coolant and see what happens.
Day 2
I changed my mind I messed around with it all day. Now tomorrow I am going to replace the thermostat it is in a very crappy location and will probably take a while. Good thing I have most of the day to mess with it.
Day 3
Messed around with it most of the day. Replaced thermostat. Started it up and the temp gauge kept on rising. So all that work for a $10 part and didn’t change a thing. The fans did kick on I don’t remember them being on before so that might help someone narrow it down. Reading on the Internet I see some posts about a blocked radiator or a bad radiator cap. So in the little time I have to work on it tomorrow I am going to go in that direction.
Took a couple days off so I could work at my job.
Day 4
Decided to go with the cheapest solutions first and hope one of them was the problem. Bought a radiator cap and when I took the old one off when the car had not been ran for 2 days antifreeze came out of the radiator lots of it. Put the new cap on and started it up. Idling in the driveway it the gauge got up to just below half way and didn’t go up any higher. So I jumped it and took it for a 5 mile drive and the gauge never went any higher. So the problem may be corrected. And all it took was a $5.45 radiator cap.
