I have a 06 Pontiac Grand Prix and was driving yesterday and started seeing what looked like white smoke coming from under the hood. The temperature gage did go to the red and I immediately pulled over and had the car towed to my house. Can someone tell me what the problem could be? I bought the car used and have had the following work done…transmission service, oil change every 3 months, replaced coolant sensor, thermostat, top coolant hose, and flushed the cooling system (believe that’s what its called)
I am not a “mechanical savvy” ao please explain in easy terms. Thanks for any help.
You car overheated and steam came out under the hood. There are lots of reasons why this could happen, I’d guess the radiator is not clogged and the thermostat is OK.
Soooo, check the fluid level and the color. Is there enough in the reservoir bottle? Probably not. You may have a failed electric cooling fan or fan relay. Is the fluid oily? Bad sign, maybe blown head gasket. It needs to go to the shop for a diagnosis.
I’ve had something like that happen a couple of times. Once on my truck it was caused b/c the top coolant hose burst. Another time, on my Corolla, b/c the radiator fan temperature switch failed, preventing the fan from working, and causing the radiator to burst its seam. Usually a burst coolant hose is pretty obvious. Mmake sure the radiator fan is spinning when it is supposed to be; i.e when the coolant is hot.