2005 S60 2.5T AWD - No Heat / Overheats on hills

MarcM · Post by **MarcM** » 23 Sep 2015, 19:10

Backstory:
I purchased the car this past Saturday at a used car lot. 146,800 miles on it. Love it, first make outside of Chrysler / GM / Honda.

Issue:
Thermostat was supposedly replaced before I bought car. Took possession of car. Drove it and it started overheating. Called used car dealership, who called that particular car supplier (they buy from auction buyers). Dirtbag buyer put in a used thermostat. Brought it back the next day for dealer to make good on his supplier's indiscretion. No thermostat available from parts stores that day. He pulled a known-good thermostat from an XC70 on the lot and installed it (I knew and agreed to this). I drove it. Same issue, just doesn't boil over. Runs needletip on thick white line midway until car is under a load or medium to hard acceleration, at which point it will rise to the red. Even overheating, there is no cabin heat. I hear the dampers moving when going from 60-85 setting. The other day I ordered the thermostat housing assy and a timing belt/tensioner/idler/waterpump kit. In the meantime I purchased a coolant temperature sender. I installed that tonight. Went for a drive. Got it to midrange and it stayed there. I went to the hilly part of town and put the pedal down. Temp gauge went 2 (to almost) lines above mid. I let off and the gauge goes slowly back in maybe 30sec to 60sec to mid-range. Still, no heat. What am I missing to fix this? Is it normal for the temp gauge to do this in 65° ambient air?
Best Regards,

Marc M.

Post by **oragex** » 23 Sep 2015, 20:56

I'm afraid thermostats fail rather open (on this car) so it won't cause the engine to overheat.

Is there airflow from the vents at all? If yes, looks like there's air trapped or a clogged cabin heater.

Air in the coolant can also explain the temp raise - an air bubble can get stuck near the temp sensor. Normally the system should self-bleed the air though.

It's rather easy to drain the coolant, disconnect at the block the two heater hoses and blow through one of them to see if air is passing through the heater core. By the same, by lifting the two hoses in the air and filling them with coolant you can make sure all air from the core heater is removed.

Is the radiator fan running when the car is overheating?

Post by **abscate** » 24 Sep 2015, 00:30

When operating correctly these cars come to temperature and stay there.

Something is wonky on this motor - maybe failing water pump or blockages in head, block, radiator.

A complete coolant change is certainly in order

MarcM · Post by **MarcM** » 25 Sep 2015, 02:05

Sorry, I need to get email notifications on post replies! I am also rushing this reply as work beckons, but you deserve a reply:
The cooling fan was constantly running when it overheated, even when I get it to center-line normal on gauge it'll be running. I have a new thermostat housing to be put in, but replaced the coolant temp sensor before it arrived. It seemed to help, but will still overheat. Waterpump/timing/tensioner kit to be installed Sunday.
As far as no-heat... I can hear flaps moving under the dash when turned from 60-84 and vis a vis... cold air. Flushing with Pentosin NF 50/50 when I do the timing belt assy/waterpump/thermostat.

MarcM · Post by **MarcM** » 26 Sep 2015, 16:11

Seems as though the thermostat was bad. The "known good" used thermostat was junk, but I also noticed the mechanic put the vent to the bottom instead of top. Replaced whole unit with new for about $65 (had to take top half off to turn thermostat). Seems to have fixed it.
Things I noted: I'm going to buy the serpentine belt tool. What an absolute nightmare by yourself with a T-55 in a 3/8" drive 1/2" socket! Trying to keep the belt on all the pulleys with one hand, holding the tensioner back with such a short ratchet handle and keeping the bit in the tensioner. Lost a couple hours trying to locate a T-55 that'll clear the inner fender well. Could only do it in that combination.
Anyway, I'm going to drive to the shop I bought the car from tomorrow with timing/waterpump kit with me. If it doesn't overheat in those hilly 20+ miles, then it'll be just a flush (have the 3 bottles of Pentosin NF & 4 gallons (yes, I know it won't take that much) of distilled water. Starting a no cabin heat thread instead of mixing the two, as I think they're unrelated now.

Post by **oragex** » 27 Sep 2015, 19:23

I too had a hard time with the serpentine tensioner so I got one of these
https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-92-645-8- ... B000NIK9XM

It's not very useful for anything else because of the weak flexible head, but for the belt it's great. A 3/8" ratchet with a 1ft extension bar would also work fine.

For the cabin heat, try touching with care the two coolant hoses that go into the firewall behind the engine, both should be hot meaning coolant is getting into the heater core. After flushing the coolant, run the engine until the t-stat opens (upper rad hose gets hot), then the next morning refill the coolant reservoir. This should make sure there is no air trapped in the heater core. From there, if still no hot air, there could be either a clogged core or the temperature flap got stuck - may still hear the flaps moving when rotating the temp knob but the ones that close the heated air might be stuck closed. Although I believe there are two of these flaps, one for each passenger. Give it a try with the Auto mode turned off and with the recirc. mode also at off (no light on the recirculate button)

MarcM · Post by **MarcM** » 27 Sep 2015, 22:37

I just now purchased a serpentine tool. IPD has them on sale:
http://www.ipdusa.com/products/11344/12 ... -p80-p1-p2
Did the flush with Pentosin NF & distilled water 50/50 today at the shop I bought the car from. Had the regular green Prestonesque stuff in it. Drained, filled with distilled water and ran car to heat it. They used the petcock on the engine, pulled a line off the transmission oil heater and the lower hose on both the initial draining and the flush. Spooge chunks came out both times. They blew air into the lower hose to force what chunkage they could out. Drove it, temp gauge came up. Stopped at a little town store. Bought a snack to wait for it to cool and for the air lock to subside and coolant to displace it. It did. Drove, had more air and wanted to overheat. Parked car at destination for a few hours and all the air displaced. Temp runs normal again. "She's" my colicky baby.

MarcM · Post by **MarcM** » 28 Sep 2015, 14:18

The system holds 3 gallons. That's 3 (1.5L) of Pentosin NF and 3 (1.5L) of distilled water. Flying up I-89N (if you know NH), it suddenly started climbing. Let off for 15+ seconds, hit it again to get the needle to go down. Went into the red when that trick stopped working. KNEW it was another bubble just by how the needle dropped to stone cold for a few seconds and kicked back up. Nursed it the other 3 miles to an O'Reilly to get another 1.5L of Pentosin. Lightly burping fluid on the ground and it was to the top of the bottle boiling. Got what I needed and came out to see a family member getting parts for a Subaru (go figure). I opened the hood again and lo and behold, the bottle was empty. She burped. Topped it off, overheated the other 7 miles. Got home, went inside, came back out and she burped again to a dry bottle. Topped it off and went for a ride into the hills so I could coast back down if need be as well as demand from the engine. It was perfectly normal. I got to the crest and turned around. Needle went 1-1/2 above normal and dropped back down, giving up another bubble ghost. Moral of the story is... the system holds 3 gallons. If you can't get all 3 gallons into it, you've got a bubble of the volumetric equation of what's left in the jug(s). Air lock location? Heater core. I know this because I have heat now! (Can I hear an amen). Closed loop cooling systems... GRRRR!

Case closed. Verdict: bad thermostat and 1/2 gallon of air.

Post by **oragex** » 28 Sep 2015, 16:23

Good news, that was an easy fix

MarcM · Post by **MarcM** » 30 Sep 2015, 14:57

Ugh. Did it again this morning on the way into work. Parked it all day. At end of day I checked the fluid before I left and the fluid level was max in the canister. I decided to make a little video with my cell... but it didn't do it this afternoon! It always did it in the afternoon. It went 1 line above mid-level quickly, then fell again. It took 30 minutes into the drive for it to do it. 10 minutes of total video on a 40min ride. Annoying it didn't do it.
While pondering leaving work, I sat in the car and read a UK forum thread about a head gasket leak. It does seem that if I accelerate mid-heavy, it starts the overheating cycle but I can't confirm it.

**** 19:42 EST Update ****
Just ran down to O'Reilly's and bought a Lisle Combustion Leak Detector. Going to mess with it tomorrow. Got to be the most annoying issue I've run into on a car. I absolutely love the car (although the other potential issues I've read on the several forums scare me)... but if the head or gasket has an issue, going back to the used car dealer.