Passat Overheat Again!!!

dogwud 21 years ago

How long does it take for an engine to cool down??? If you scroll down the Topic list, you'll see the saga of my overheating Passat. The dealer could find nothing wrong, and since then I drove it three days without a problem. Until tonight. The thermostat needle pegged to the right and the display said STOP after only 20 miles. Once again, it has plenty of coolant in it. After 30 minutes off, it went from

240 degrees to about 200, so i drove ten miles until it pegged again. Waiting an hour with the hood up, the thermometer hardly moved. Shouldn't the engine cool quite a bit after an hour? It makes me think it's thermostat failure.

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Joseph Meehan 21 years ago

I suspect you may find it interesting to replace the temperature sensor or better yet add a external temperature sensor. Have you had any indication other than the dash indicator that it is really overheating?

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Woodchuck 21 years ago

A little more insight on your issue. This week we had 2 V6 Passats with overheat issues.

1- was waterpump 2- was ECT(engine coolant temperature sensor)

1- so since the dealer didn't replace the waterpump while doing the timing belt replacement... well you already know my 2 cents. The one we did with t-belt, water pump, tension roller totaled about $900 and our labor rate is $75 per hour.

2- The other Passat was the ECT. What had happened on this car is coolant leaks out of the sensor onto the contacts in the connector. This intern altered the resistance and cause the temperature gauge to read way to high. In reality the engine wasn't really overheating at all. This can be checked by removing the connector plug and looking for coolant present.

MY moneys on the ECT!

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MikeK 21 years ago

"dogwud" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@localhost.talkaboutautos.com:

When the temp pegs and you stop the car and pop the hood, what's happening to the coolant in the reservoir? When this happened to me (and it happened all at once and was NOT intermittent), the fluid in the reservoir was bubbling. That's an indication that it's really overheating.

If your gauge pegs and therre's no visible indication of a hot engine, it could be a false alarm like Woodchuck indicates.

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