When my car is at a red light or idling the temp guage moves up to 210 degrees. Is this right for these cars? (98 WS6 M6 - Stock). Car drives in Louisiana.

 

yup..thats normal..your lucky, the 98's actually have a "real" guage. The 99's and above have dummy guages...Once my car is warmed up, it reads 210 all the time..it wont move any higher unless the car is overheating..it sucks...

 

Same here. Once I get up to operating temperature, I'm always at 210 or maybe just a little below.

 

Is this something that just started?

Do you have stock T-Stat in there?

Put a 160 in there and reset the fans and your temp guage will never go above the 155 mark if everything else works properly anyway.

My engine (in sig) will never, ever, ever, go above the 155 degree mark if I drive without the A/C...in 95 degree weather in traffic all day long. And it never reached 210 when it was stock with the stock T-Stat either.

The only time my engine will go anywhere near the 210 mark is with the A/C on in heavy traffic on a hot as ***** day.....and then it still won't quite reach the 210 mark.

Here's something everyone should do as maintenance:

After my car was about 6 years old it started overheating BIG TIME and fast as soon as I turned the A/C on. It would go all the way into the red if I let it keep going. But would run cool with the A/C off, no matter how I drove it.

I cracked my radiator while changing the heads (leaning on it). While I was putting the new radiator in I noticed the A/C condensor (in front of the radiator and basically covers the entire main cooling area of the radiator) was almost 100% completely clogged up with ****. Dead grass, little sticks, tiny pebbles, pieces of wood chips....you name it. 85% of the surface was completely clogged. I couldn't see through it and my hose set on stream could not even blast through it at all.

I took it and banged it up against the frame of the car about 50 times and literally had a pile of **** on the ground underneath. It was amazing. It was like it was brand new and I could see light through the entire surface.

The overheating problem was 100% fixed. I can run my A/C with my 436 stroker all day in hot South Florida weather and my temp will never reach the 210 mark. I would have to race around with the A/C "on" for it to reach 210.

And this is not a guage thing. When my engine was getting hot I could open my hood and you couldn't touch ANYTHING without getting burned. The lid, the intake, my strut tower brace, the struts, the fuse boxes, etc..... Now I can open my hood anytime and touch all that stuff.

You have a 1998 too, do this as maintenance and see if it fixes your problem.

 

Good post. My life has been filled with cooling system problems on GM's for about 3 years (SBC Freeze Plugs, Intake Gaskets, Water pumps, hoses, radiators, radiators again b/c you can never get all the rust and scale out of a SBC block, thermostats stuck in open position). I'm all too familiar with the problems and will not overlook your comments.

 

Sounds 100% normal.

 

Just get the fans tuned to come on at a cooler temp problem solved.

 

i thought turning on the A/C or heat kept it cooler

 

i got my car tuned, and i guess he lowered the fan temps, cause as soon as my temp gauge hit 210 the fans kicked on and promptly dropped it to the 1st hash mark.

 

No, turning the A/C on does two things: #1 Engine runs a little harder due to it having to turn the A/C compressor. And #2 it starts making the condensor in front of the radiator warm, which takes away cooling air to than go through the radiator. The air has to go through the condensor first, than the radiator.


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wow when im at ilde and then i turn on my a/c the temp goes down

 

Turning on the A/C also activates the fans.

Temperature going up to 210 when stopped is normal, I am told they are allowed to get that hot to help control emissions. I use a manual fan switch to keep my temp down when stopped, works great.

 

Yeah, maybe at idle. Try it in stop and go traffic in warm weather. It will shoot up.


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My car, when stock, never saw 210, not even close. After my 436 went in, same thing, never close unless it was 90 degree weather in heavy stop and go traiffic with the A/C "on". Had a 160 t-stat put in with the 436ci mod.


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