A little help for Ruby

[RubyCamaro]

First let me vent a bit then the questions. I am pissed off!!!!! I took Ruby to the dealership to have the radiator flushed a few weeks ago. Today I got it out & just ran about 5 mi down the road to get gas. No problem. On the way back home about a couple miles from the house & get a warning light "Engine overheated" Then "Idle engine". I crept a few feet down the road to the next intersection where I could safely pull over. I shut the car off & popped the hood. Everything looked okay, no steam, but the fan ran for a little while. Called hubby. No coolant showing on the dipstick but we could see a little in the radiator under the pressure cap. we added about 2/3 a gallon. Soooooo it appears they did not fill my car sufficiently with coolant. Grrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!.

Now the questions. Is it normal for the car to get that hot with only a 2/3 of a gallon low on like a 5-7 mi drive?

After we added the coolant & it was driven around the block it read 199 degrees. When we got it home like 2 miles more) it read 205 degrees then dropped to 201 with a few min at idle. What is the normal operating temp of our cars?

I had taken at least one road trip after it was serviced of about 70 mi each way. There was no leak indicated on the garage floor under the car. I did think I smelled something when I started it up but I thought it smelled more like gas fumes. Thoughts?

[70rsz28]

I don't have the answers but if it was me I would revisit the dealership Monday . no sign of a leak ? or did they not fill it up to the ,required level ?

[Linker239]

I know this isn't a lot of help, but I'm think about doing a coolant flush myself soon. I looked and I may be a bit low on mine, I noticed it was running a bit hotter like 209-217, I thought that it may just be the summer heat. I would go back to the dealer and bust some heads.

[RubyCamaro]

What operating temps had you noted previously?

[RubyCamaro]

I just looked at my receipt from the flush & the specs for the coolant capacity. The capacicity is 10.2 qt. The reciept indicates they put 8.8 qt. There is the proof. Heads are going to roll. What if I had been on the interstate & could not stop & blew my engine? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

[Linker239]

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

What operating temps had you noted previously?

I usually run like 179 ish. But I wasn't getting on it at all. I was afraid if I did the temp would have shot ip real high. It was responding to the throttle some. I'm going after work tomorrow to pick up some Dexcool.

[Lil' Nasty]

No higher than than 199 unless idling for awhile.

[rtcat600man]

Sorry to here that Ruby.

For sure sounds like they are in trouble with not adding enough coolant.

My temp. goes between 199 and 203 under every driving condition.

Only time I see anything higher is sitting in traffic and it is hot out.

[PAUL SS]

Sounds like they just filled it and did not run it to purge any trapped air. Unacceptable.

[TooCool5]

Originally Posted by rtcat600man

Sorry to here that Ruby.

For sure sounds like they are in trouble with not adding enough coolant.

My temp. goes between 199 and 203 under every driving condition.

Only time I see anything higher is sitting in traffic and it is hot out.

^This ^ I have seen my temp go as high as 205 in summer idling.

When I changed my coolant I had to keep running it, then removing the cap 4 or 5 times until purged of air. then fill the over flow and keep checking the level for the next week.
This intake coolant cap is wanky and I could see why the discontinued it.

[RubyCamaro]

The saga continued. We checked it this morning & it seemed good, no leaks detected on the garage floor, level was good when cool & with running it a while so I decided to go on to the club event since I'd have lots of help if needed & wanted to see how it ran. We bought a fresh bottle of coolant to take with us. It did fine from Springfield to Bowling Green (mostly interstate, about 35 mi.). We stopped at the Corvette museum to meet up with some more folks.

When we left there to head to the event, my car started acting funny. When I did not have my foot on the gas at all or was braking the engine would surge hard & then back to normal repeatedly. Now it was a weird surge. It did not feel like it was shifting like when it does not seem to know what gear it wants to be in. Usually when it does that you have your foot on the gas at least a little. It did not feel like it was trying to speed up like it does when it does the indecisive shifting thing. Just like the engine was getting louder & revving hard. I pulled over along with hubby & a club guy who is a mechanic. He looked at it & reached down touching a lower coolant hose & said it was cold whereas it should be hot. He said it probably still had air in it. We drove it easy to the event. I called OnStar & had them do a diagnostic & they did not find anything. We let it cool & he checked the coolant. He squeezed on that hose & you should have seen the air come bubbling up. We spent the rest of the day at the show, off & on working on the car running it, letting the air work out, letting it cool a while doing it again. It was amazing how much air came up. It drove fine coming home.

Now, what do I do about the dealership other than give them a piece of my mind? Now I pretty much know the air is worked out of it but I think at least they should give me my $ back, maybe reimburse me for the coolant I had to add that they did not add, maybe reimburse me for what I should pay my friend for working on it all day in the heat at a car show in the grass & under trees. Maybe they should even have to clean it up underneath where we ended up getting coolant on parts of the car trying to do all this at a car show (I am going to go out & do the best I can when it cools down some outside). I know they are going to want to re-do the job but I am just not sure I want them to. I definitely want to know the name of the tech who did it I be assured he will never touch my car again.

When I think about being stranded in the projects at dusk on a Friday evening & about what could have happened if I had gotten the engine overheat warning on the interstate in traffic where I could not get over, I get so furious!

[1Coopgt]

Originally Posted by PAUL SS

Sounds like they just filled it and did not run it to purge any trapped air. Unacceptable.

+1 I was thinking the same thing . Trapped air in the system and it worked it's self out while you were out and about . At least you were close to home .

[Red2014SS]

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

Now, what do I do about the dealership other than give them a piece of my mind?

I think your friend should print out an invoice, charging the same hourly rate as the dealer service dept does.. You should take it into the dealership and lay it on the service manager's desk, then ask him to do something about it. They don't have any problems charging us out the wahzoo for every minor little thing, so turn about is fair play.

They likely gave your car to the lowest guy on the totem pole, figuring he could do a simple job like coolant while he was sweeping the floor. Unfortunately, that's what happens with small jobs... You paid top dollar and you deserved a top wrench. Had you gotten one, this thread wouldn't exist.

[Linker239]

Sorry to hear you had all these problems with it. Atleast you got her running fine again. I would go raise some hell at the dealership.