On my way to work this afternoon, the car overheated. I got it into the parking lot with smoke coming out from under the hood. When I looked under the hood, the smoke was coming from where the hose connects to the radiator, the o-ring was loose and the hose nearly off.

So I put it back on, tightened up the o-ring and went out about every hour to top off the coolant as it got sucked into the radiator, figuring that it all must of leaked out where the hise was loose. When I started it tonight the temp seemed to hold pretty steady so I'm assuming that the hose just fell off rather than being blown loose when the car overheated.

Only thing is, I crank my heat and all I get is cold air. I'm really not sure if this is new or and existing phenomenon because it just barely starting getting cold up here. All I know is recently it did seem to run hot when I was idling or in traffic then cool down when I started driving and got some airflow.

So I'm thinking that I swap out the thermostat and that's the end of that. Does anybody concur?

You have air in your system. Read up on bleeding it. Simple procedure but necessary.

+1

On my way to work this afternoon, the car overheated. I got it into the parking lot with smoke coming out from under the hood. When I looked under the hood, the smoke was coming from where the hose connects to the radiator, the o-ring was loose and the hose nearly off.

So I put it back on, tightened up the o-ring and went out about every hour to top off the coolant as it got sucked into the radiator, figuring that it all must of leaked out where the hise was loose. When I started it tonight the temp seemed to hold pretty steady so I'm assuming that the hose just fell off rather than being blown loose when the car overheated.

Only thing is, I crank my heat and all I get is cold air. I'm really not sure if this is new or and existing phenomenon because it just barely starting getting cold up here. All I know is recently it did seem to run hot when I was idling or in traffic then cool down when I started driving and got some airflow.

So I'm thinking that I swap out the thermostat and that's the end of that. Does anybody concur?

Your heater core is probably plugged. Either replace it or bypass it.

To check it, let the engine heat up and feel the two coolant hoses going into the firewall. If one is hotter than the other, it's plugged.

To bypass it, just take those two hoses off the firewall and connect them togeather.

And yes, a plugged heater core will cause your car to overheat.

It overheated again this afternoon. Again, the hose was loose and upon closer inspection the neck of the radiator was cracked. A trucker at the gas station where I pulled off said to drive with the radiator cap unscrewed as loose as possible as a sort of pressure release in order to get it home. But, I've also noticed that it has a small oil leak coming from around the oil pan area which makes me wonder if I've blown the HG which makes me wonder if I should even bother with replacing the radiator.