Hi,
I drive a 1987 Toyota Tercel with 276,000 miles on it. My parents bought this car brand new back in 87 and it got alot of use. Anyways I now drive this beast back and forth from college. I'v been noticing the car getting REALLY hot, in the red zone.
I always heard if this starts to happen to turn on the heater. Well, the guage reads about 70% of the way up after about 10 minutes of driving and i turn on the heater and it still blows cold air...The last couple of days, the temp guage had to go into the RED zone to get hot, then air got warm (note: not hot, just warm) and starting to cool the engine down a bit....I think it's real wierd, though, that the heater is not blowing hot air with the temp guage showing it 70% or above in heat...today, when i was driving home, it got the hottest ever, temp guage was actually above the red zone, car ran fine, and NO HOT AIR, but I got really worried because it was so high I pulled over..
Now, the car has always been real hard to get hot air, but the temp guage used to be witness to that, being that the temp guage never really got past half-way during colder months (took about 20 minutes to get it to blow hot air)...
What could be my problem?? Maybe the temp guage?? Radiator??
Thanks!
-LT