RubyCamaro origins & the journey continues

[RubyCamaro]

I thought I'd add the saga of how my radiator flush turned into a scary event here. Here are a few reposts from the thread I started about it in the V6 section. Incase you don't want to read it all. Ruby is all good now. Oil change is next. Hopefully without any drama (the dealership never gets to do this).

Here are the reposts:
7/24/15
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.

7/25/15:
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!

7/27/15

I'm back. The service manager said he had put one of his best techs on my car because he would not let just anyone work on my car. He could not explain what had happened but said there was no excuse. He refunded my $ for the coolant flush part of the service. He had the car checked out including rechecking the brakes because I also had the DOT 4 added the same day & cleaned the belt where we had gotten some coolant on it (I had already cleaned it as best I could). I guess that is all he could do. I'm still not happy about it but you can't undo what was done.

Anyway, It is all good now I guess. Just frustrating that such a simple routine thing turned into such a drama.

[The Circle]

The Circle is glad to hear you got your car back in tip top shape.

[RubyCamaro]

Thank you to the Circle for visiting my humble build thread.

[RubyCamaro]

Vitesse is installed. Thanks hammdo! Just a first pic. I got the wires tucked away later but the Iphone was about to die when I took the pics. I have not taken her out to play yet. It is hot as hell outside right now. Reviews later.

[hammdo]

Eh, in Texas we would not let the heat stop us -- JK -- ;o)...

Glad you got it going! Can't wait for the review...

-Don

[RubyCamaro]

Okay, early review. Honestly after all I had heard about this thing, I am somewhat unimpressed. I could tell a difference, but even on 9 it was not the "OMG it was hard to handle" difference folks had talked about. Maybe with my mods & tune my lag time in minimal & maybe the difference is just not as impressive on the V6 as with the V8's. I slowed to a crawl on several long straight stretches of road & punched it. Yeah, it will go, but I never even chirped the tires until I stopped and got gas on the way home & chirped them a little pulling out (set on 9). I will keep it on & drive it some more & maybe on curvy roads next time.

[hammdo]

Interesting, I wonder what the difference is. I'm assuming you did the reset and recalibrate...

Well, @ least you get to test it out! Keep us posted...

-Don

[RubyCamaro]

I dunno. Probably just that I am pretty used to driving my car spiritedly and the mods & tune I have probably have minimized the lag some. Plus just being the V6 & not having the torque of the V8 it probably just is not going to feel like it is going to get away with me as much. But I still like it.

[RubyCamaro]

I got some little stick on "Rubys" to put one on my throttle controller to help keep my ADHD self from pushing the wrong button and thought I'd add a bit of under hood bling with them too. Not sure I'll keep it but it was fun & She can have a little bling & still be a bad azz girl.

[RubyCamaro]

Well I have to admit I am liking the throttle controller more as I drive with it more. Maybe Ruby needed to "learn" it for a while???? Anyway, I took it for spirited drives yesterday & today on curvy country roads & it was fun! Here are a couple of pics I stopped & took yesterday.

[mlee]

nice pics... Ruby is looking good as always.

[RubyCamaro]

Time to race again on next Saturday!

[mlee]

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

Time to race again on next Saturday!

Wohooo

[hammdo]

Nice! Keep it up...

-Don