Well, the overheating car reared its ugly head once again today. We were on our way home from church when the coolant temp began climbing. The car had been staying under 200 (195 thermostat) unless we let it idle.
Well today it idled for about 10 minutes before I got out of the church and out to the car. With air temps approaching 90 degrees, Kim had idled the car with the A/C on to cool it down before I got in. I think that got it going. As we left, the temp began climbing. Once we got up to around 45 mph, the temp stopped increasing and held steady. I chose to continue toward home, about 15 minutes away.
Just a couple of minutes later, the temp began climbing again as we had to keep stopping for traffic lights (due, of course, to other drivers not driving in an efficient, timely manner.) With 8 minutes left to home, the red overheat light came on and the display told me to “Idle Engine.” That was it, time to pull over. Of course we were on a narrow 2 lane road with no shoulders… about 1/4 mile down the road was a small side road. I took it, drove a little ways down the road and stopped. Fortunately, we didn’t look like this…
So while we started to sweat, I called AAA. Naturally we were in an area with very little cell phone signal. After several dropped calls, the Lord intervened (again) and I connected. They told us they could get someone there in about 35 minutes. I asked them to “step on it” as neither of us had our diabetes meds with us and Kim really can’t take the heat due to her cardiomyopathy.
The tow truck arrived in about 30 minutes and got us home in good shape, even if we were soaking wet with sweat. The car had boiled over about 2 gallons of coolant, out of 3.25 capacity, so the temp had kept going but by the time we stopped, nothing else was boiling over. Now to get the repairs set up. No leaks so I’m thinking fan or thermostat. Ugh! Thank you AAA & Pataskala Towing for getting us home!