what's wrong with my car? over heating?

Question

i have a 91 holden VN.
and every time i do laps of the main of stop in traffic, the temp goes up, i know that the auto fan that is ment to kick in when the engine fan stops (something like that), and this doesn't happen,
is there anything i can do or do i have to take it to a pro?
or could it be something different all together?

Answer 1

Sounds like your thermostat is bad. You can either replace it or remove it.

OR perhaps you have a leak in your radiator - check to make sure you are retaining coolant/anti-freeze or at the very least, water.

Answer 2

This could be a few things, hard to tell without looking at it.
May be it's your fan, if it's electric and it's not coming on the motor may be shot, this can also be caused by a cooling sensor. It's probably best to have it checked to find out what is wrong rather than spend a lot of money guessing, sometimes auto parts stores can check to see what the cause is and they will so they can sell you the part, if they can't have it checked by a mechanic, even if you don't have them fix it you can have the problem diagnosed then buy the part yourself and replace it so you don't pay for the labor.

Answer 3

Sounds like a faulty thermostat, or you could have a leaky radiator.

The thermo should be on the top of your radiator, a good way to check if it is working is to boil a kettle/jug of water unscrew and drop the thermo into the water while the engine is running. The fan should then kick in.

Answer 4

Electrical thermostat. Go replace it. This is easy to replace. You'll find it attached to the radiator somewhere with a couple of wires coming off it.

Answer 5

sounds like a failure in the fan control circuit, now the question is where is the problem. it could be a relay, a fuse, or a temperature sensor, or even the computer, or simply the wiring between, without looking i could not pinpoint the problem.