one of my new employees bought this voager and it over heats! I’m trying to help her. we have taken it and had a new thermostate put in after fixing her leaking radiator with the radiator stop leak.The electric fan is wired direct so it is always on. we had it checked out and the car will idle for hrs and will not over heat, took it for a drive and it overheated,then they drilled a hole through the thermistate to have it open all the time. however when driving it will redline on heat again. they told us it could be a head gasket! any ideas this poor girl is at whits end. is there any way to fix this besides replacing the head gasket if in fact that is what the problem is? Also it was suggested to drive the van with the radiator cap loose so it would not build up pressure and force the coolent into the engine. HELP
Head gasket failures are common on the 4 cylinder engines (2.5 liter?). I have the 2.2 liter version of the same engine and to head gasket failed at about 120K miles.
If it is a V6, the gaskets are known to fail, but not as often.
If the head gasket is leaking, there is no shortcut. You need to replace the gasket and check the head for flatness.
allpar.com has a lot of technical information on your engine if you want more info.