my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill LOL

could this be a sign of an over-filled coolant tank? it only comes on in spurts, and never stays on for more than a few seconds @ a time. as some of you know, i just got my radiator hose with a gash in it replaced, and that seemed to solve the problem for awhile. mostly thanks to CPF's help. now it's coming on again, pretty much when driving uphill.

whaaaat is going on? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif

id say to low but im guessing its not overhearing?

coolant light? usually means add coolant. if you recently changed stuff, all the more reason, since once the air bubbles in the system bleed out, coolant level drops.

nope. no overheating Raggie. no burning smells coming from the hood of the car or anything.

and the coolant tank is filled to the line on the side. a bit over in fact. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif

could u be more specific by "coolant light" what you mean? was the cooling system bled at all?

The coolant warning sensor is in the base of the overflow tank if it dries out it basically develops a skin over the probe and misreads. Time usually solves the problem as the new coolant dissolves the "skin" It could also be a loose electrical connection for the sensor also.

Some cars REQUIRE that you jack up the front of the car when refilling coolant that had leaked from the engine (not the overflow). If this is not done, air pockets are not fully purged. Possibly you have some air in the system?

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

Find a way to jack the nose of your car up about 1 foot..on a level surface. Open the fill cap on your radiator. Start the vehicle and let it run. You need to watch for bubbles in the neck of the radiator. Keep adding coolant as it gurgles and the coolant level drops. This process will probably take a half hour. When it stops gurgling, make sure the level is where it should be, and cap the radiator. Turn the car off. Drop vehicle to the ground...level surface, and top off the coolant recovery tank to the HOT line.

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

Very probably an air bubble in the system. Most common to find this after replacing a hose, flushing the system, etc. UNCLEARTY is correct -- car and coolant system has to be at an angle and be sure to throw a block under the wheels. Always keep the cap open (do NOT remove the cap on a hot engine of course), and this is not a 30 second job. Take your time and get all the air out. You may have to add coolant to the overflow tank several times during the system purge. Have plenty to start with and never leave pans of it lying around -- pets and kids think it tastes really nice and sweet, and it will kill.

*** BTW, just remembered, it could be air trapped in the heater core as well. That's something that I've seen quite a bit.

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

Do as unclearty says. Also, turn the your heater on hot, and all the way on.

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

Are you sure this is not the temperature warning light? If it is, you may be on the verge of overheating your engine. This can happen with no burning smell coming from the hood, as you mentioned earlier. Check your owner's manual for the exact meaning of the light you are seeing.

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

Earlier today my engine overheated. I got out of the car and the engine started puking. I quickly got inside and started it up. This stopped the puke.

Not enough of it came out to be on empty or really low. I noticed the same thing happen to me. The light came on when I was going uphill.

Now I made it home. I am going to wait for the engine to cool off, and do what was recommended earlier. I know this will fix it.

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

the light looks like this (i'm pretty sure it's the coolant light):


i'll try the elevated coolant fill tomorrow. thanks guys, i'll let you know how it turns out!

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

looks like low coolant all right; note someone mentioned opening the rad cap and letting it gurgle to get air out... that only works to SOME degree. the air pockets could well be anywhere in the entire system, engine block, head, heater core, so the open rad cap will only remove the initial pockets of air that wee IN THE RAD; to get the rest out, you'd have to have the cap on, and thermostat open, meaning operating temp (temp gauge reading in the middle), and drive around for a while, then let it cool, and hopefully some of the air will have made it to the rad and gotten trapped under the cap (of if you have a bleed screw on there).

Re: my coolant light comes on when i drive uphill

I am not familiar with your make and model of car, and that warning icon definitely looks like low fluid of some sort, but again, I would not do anything until I referenced the owner's manual to determine the exact meaning of the light. There is not perfect consistency of the meaning of warning lights from car to car. Some cars have low windshield washer fluid warning lights (obviously that is not a crisis). If it is low coolant, it is most likely a reading from a sensor in the overflow resivoir, in which case bleeding the air out of the hoses/engine/radiator part of the system won't have much effect on that sensor if you are not affecting the level in the resivoir.

If you don't know exactly what you are doing, I recommend that you take it to a real mechanic for a diagnosis. This will be a lot less expensive than guessing wrong and risking a cracked engine block from overheating. There are some jobs that are fine to experiment with, but I don't think it is wise to mess with overheating (or brakes) unless you know what you are doing. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on this board, but none of them can actually see your car.