What could Cause sudden temp increase?

[gregmondro]

need some help with this guys.
Tonight when I was driving my car here in town, I had the AC off and the temp gauge went up almost to the red zone and the check gauges light went on.

I proceeded to turn on the ac (so the fans would turn on) and the temp went back to normal and the check gauges light went off (all within a couple seconds).


what could be the cause of this? this is the only time this has EVER happened.

[Devilboy28]

Thermostat is my first guess.

[gregmondro]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Devilboy28:
Thermostat is my first guess.<hr></blockquote>
yeah, what about it though?
can they simply 'go bad'?

[Dominic]

They can stick shut or open. Open is driveable, Shut is bad!

[gregmondro]

is there anything I can do to prevent it from doing this in the future?

[hockeyman]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by gregmondro:
is there anything I can do to prevent it from doing this in the future?<hr></blockquote>

replace it.

-Marc

[Ttop34]

It's a no brainer but check your coolant level, fill it to the top. On my 94 camaro it would loose coolant to somewhere and have drastic temperature changes like that. We never found where the water went nor did we fix the problem. The car was sold to a girl and then totalled.

[SilverTAWS6]

Also could be your electric fans.
My 1987 TA used to do that all the time b/c the sensors for the fans weren't hooked up right. I'm leaning this way too b/c turning on the AC (which turned on the fans) fixed it....

Chris

[Loochy88]

mine has been going up to about half or 3/4 sometimes recently when im sitting in traffic. i wonder if its the thermo. ill have to check it out sooner or later. ill probably also flush the coolant system, and maybe check on those fan sensors.

[v6maro]

this happened to me many a times on my car
here is the history

1st time, thermo ($10)
2nd time, water pump ($300)
3rd time, blew a head gasket ($1300)

-Steve

[youngcamarokid]

Try wiring yourself up a fan switch... Took me like 2 hours just cause I wanted the bracket perfect. I made a bracket to go in the ash tray since nobody's allowed to smoke in my car, and I didn't want to de-face any of the plastic pieces.

Works pretty good.