What a morning, I tell ya. I got up and started the car, started fine, warms up and I'm on the road, taking the GF to her work. We're going up a steep hill behind a truck and start to smell antifreez, we think nothing of it, thinking maybe its the truck. By the time we get on the highway the engine is heating up like mad!!

I figure I'll drive slow (50 in 5th) to the next exit. 10 miles later, the temp needle is almost pointing straight up, so I pull over and let it idle to see if its going to cool down. It keeps getting hotter so I shut it off and we call a tow truck.

We get home, and we're looking around in the engine, and the lower radiator hose had been ***-connected completely. Either the guy who last replaced the thing forgot to tighten it, or I don't know.

We got the radiator hose back on, tightened it, and saw that there was still anti-freeze in the radiator, but nothing in the reservoir , so we put water in it, let it run for about 10 minutes and then went for a drive. The car seems a bit slower, when I get on the gas it sounds the same, but doesen't have its usual jump.

My question is, did driving it for 10 miles under these conditions mess something up? Also the revs don't go down quite as fast in between shifts, the engine sort of hangs at a high rpm and winds down more slowly. I really hope its not what I think it is.

Anyways, let me know what you guys think.

Is there any oil in your reservoir?

I'm not sure what you mean. I did check the oil and it looked to be at normal levels, although it was a few shades darker than I suppose it should be.

I meant oil in your antifreeze reservoir. Which can be indicative of a blown head gasket.

Oh, no, their was no oil in the reservoir. And the anti-freeze that was in the radiator was a smooth green color.

now you need to bleed your cooling system also. Exactly how hot did you let the car get? If it was pointing straight up, you may have big problems, could have warped the head, cams...all kinds of expensive things.

well you knew your car was overheating and you ignored it for 10 minutes so you definately warped something if you say the bottom hose was completely off. Do a compression check. Does it smoke? Drain your oil to see if you have any water/coolant=lovely chocolate combo.

Pretending that the temp readout was a gas readout, I would say for all but the last mile maybe, I was a little over half way. Then once it started getting towards 3 quarters I pulled over. I thought turning it off suddenly could be bad for it so I let it idle on the side of the road with the heater on full blast, and the needle kept rising to about a needle shy of full.

your best bet was to just shut it off, you would have been better off driving it honestly because the air rushing into the car would have helped a lot, a car at idle is when it is the hottest, especially after a long drive. I would def. check the compression on it and see what the deal is with that. Is the CEL on? Lots of things can be out of whack when a cam or head warp just a smidgen.

Hmm, I've removed the radiator drain plug, and loosened the air release, and nothing is coming out of it. I don't have a hose or anything like that to "flush" it. Hmm. This has been such a weird day.

Is the CEL on?

I'm assuming CEL = check engine light. Through the whole deal I haven't seen it even blip on once.

compression??

I haven't been really into cars for very long so I don't have the tools to do a compression test. I'll be tool shopping Thursday though, and know what to look for. Until then we're not going to drive it. But whats really bugging me is that the radiator fluid wouldn't drain. :(

Well, I found out whats wrong with the coolant not draining. The heater core is toast and needs to be replaced. One problem after another with this thing, I swear! >(

The piece of junk is sitting on the side of some road. Has it been towed, I don't know, and frankly if that thing were to be disintegrated by a million rockets I would probably be happy.

Well here's the story.

Last night after the whole first ordeal we fix the radiator hose, and get all the coolant replaced. We started it up and took it around the block a few times and it ran well. We came back and I put up the trade in the seller section. We started googling like mad and found some information about "the heater core might be bad" and "the thermostat might be bad". The symptoms matched as our heater is ice cold. That evening around 10 in the P. M. I get a call from the "mechanic" that traded us the piece of junk. He said if I could get it to Williston from Fairfax, he'd fix it.

He'd screwed me once on the deal, but I'm of the opinion that everybody deserves at least 3 chances (he's at strike 2 at the moment he called).

Anyways, I decide to give him one last chance to make good on his word that this car will last, and he will help make sure that thats the case, and decide to baby it to Williston.

Morning comes, car starts fine, and runs fine for about 10 miles. Running fine in the since that we're not taking the engine over 2k rpms. Then all of a sudden, after a few hills, the temp gauge rapidly starts to climb. I remember some of the earlier posts saying to just kill it after that, so thats what I did. I found the first spot (not far) to pull over, and shut the mother off. We waited about 40 minutes for it to cool, checked the reservoir to make sure it didn't leak or anything, then took off again.

This time we only made it about 4 miles, and the temp started climbing fast again so again we pulled over as soon as possible. This time it was in some old army vet's driveway. We sat there for another 40 minutes or so, until one of my girlfriends work mates drove by. She caught a ride with her friend and abandoned me with the poop mobile.

I waited another 10 minutes or so, and checked the reservoir. This time I noticed that it was bone dry. I filled it with water and took off. Four miles or so down the road, pulled over. Overheated. I grabbed the cell and called the "mechanic". No answer, called everyone I know practically, and got no answer.

Finally 10:00 AM rolls around and I call the library where my GF works, and she sent someone to pick me up. After trying to get a hold of the "mechanic" about 30 times, we called a tow service and its on its way to a real mechanic with a real shop, who does real business with real people, and not just some stoned piece of crap pothead looser. Thats strike 3.

Hopefully they fix it up and it runs like it did before all this started happening. Fast and peppy. Then we can start looking for something that wont leave us stranded like that again. If someone comes up with a good trade we'll probably take on it. If not we'll find a car to buy outright, and turn the NX back into a project car and try to learn about how cars work on our own.

it sounds like you blew the head gasket.

if your heat is cold and you are randomly over heating i would say you have air bubbles........................................*** t would be the case if the car wasnt driven for 10miles over heating.

I figured it was my turn to do the updating (I'm b0ib0t's girlfriend - duh :) ).

The mechanic at the new shop just thinks it's air in the lines. When they would start it sometimes the heat would work and sometimes not and it never overheated (not that they drove it up the mountains or anything). As of now the heat seems fine, though he did say it might be a good idea to replace the heater core. If they were to do it, just the labor would be $750, so we figure we can do that sometime on our own.

Oh, and he was worried about working on it at all because he wasn't familiar with an NX. b0ib0t told him to just imagine it was a Sentra, and all went fine :)

We rented a car so that we could get to work and back so when we go to pick the NX up tomarrow we won't be totally out of luck if it begins to overheat again.

Keep your fingers crossed! Hopefully the radiator just needed a good flushing and all is good now.

did they bleed the system?


go find a funnle that will fit sungly in the radiator opening.........if you can shove the tip of the funnle and it sticks in there it will work.

now fill the funnle 1/4 way with 50/50 mix coolant and turn the car on with the heat running. let the car warm up all the way and see if the coolant has gone down in the funnle.

this happened to me. except my belt fell off the alt/water pump on the freeway. Once I replaced the belt, i got a nasty whine and smoke 2min later from the hood. head gasket gone.

If you have noticable power loss, especially after an overheat, head gasket is very real. It's also possible to get a bad pump after that, so no matter how often you add coolant it will always overheat again.