From Mobile, AL (on the Gulf Coast)
One of the radiator hose clamps broke on my 2008 Ford Focus last summer. When we replaced it, apparently we didn’t fill the coolant properly because it kept overheating & the overflow container was almost empty regardless of whether the engine was hot or cold, it just didn’t seem to move at all. Finally we got enough coolant run into it and it ran fine.
Then in September the check engine light came on & the error showed it was consistently running cold. The car had to run about 20 minutes before it would get up into the normal range. This continued all winter.
The heater also blew only lukewarm until the gauge reached the normal zone. And if you turned the heater on before it reached normal, the temperature gauge would tank back down to cold - FAST, like in the span of less than a minute. Average winter temps here are in the 30s & 40s so not terribly cold.
Now it’s Spring & temps are in the 70s & 80s and the car is warming up much more quickly, acting fairly normal. However, my AC seems to be lukewarm now. No overheating at this point but with 90-100 degree days on the horizon, I’m worried. Any ideas?
The lack of heat in the winter is usually caused by a bad (stuck open) thermostat. It prevents the engine coolant from ever reaching a high enough temperature to provide interior heating. The engine itself also won’t run at optimum efficiency if it never gets up to its designed operating temperature.
This shouldn’t have any effect on the AC however. It may just need to be serviced.
The first problem is very likely the thermostat
I doubt the second is related
IOW agree with **Hail Ants
Capt**
Thanks guys. I did have it looked at by a friend who’s a mechanic (not cars but factory machinery.) He said the coolant level was rising & falling, indicating the thermostat was opening & closing but possibly just not closing all the way. Took it to an automotive mechanic, who misunderstood the problem & thought I was leaking coolant due to a crack in the housing. When I stressed to him it was running cold, not hot, he said he’d never heard of such. I Googled & found a person with a similar problem, suggestions were that there was an air pocket in the cooling system or a broken sensor.