My 2002 PT Cruiser is overheating
My 2002 PT Cruiser has82,000 miles on it and the motor has been rebuilt at
51,000. It's never overheated the three years I've had it until 3 weeks ago.
I've had three different mechanics take a look at the problem (one of them
was a radiator shop), and none of them can even get the car to overheat!
Two of the mechanics let the car idle in the 105 degree heat and it won't
overheat! the first shop changed the thermostat & housing, checked the fans
the 2nd shop bled the air out of the cooling system checked the flow rate of
the radiator, and the third shop couldn't diagnosis the problem. all three of
the shops said it could be a head gasket leak, but the oil is still black and
doesn't show any signs of water in it (no discoloration). I'm at my wits end.
Could it possibly be the oil pump? not sure how to figure if that's the
problem, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Step 1. Check coolant for combustion by products . . . Modern shops in 2021 use 4 / 5 gas analyzers, the old school method was a chemical test to check for combustion gases in coolant. If gases are present indicates FAILED head gasket or crack in head. Regards
I agree do a chemical block test as it is simple and cheep to do. Also are you loosing coolant at all and is it smoking from the tail pipe? You have three ports in the engine block and head that are oil,coolant and exhaust. So you could have either coolant mixing with oil or exhaust mixing with coolant.