01 Elantra - overheats, stalls, and blows cold air

[tristanlee85]

I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out why my friend's car would overheat (temp gauge max out) and then it would stall whenever she came to a stop sign and would not start back up. After I towed it to my place, I started dicking with some sensors and found that pulling the CTS would allow the car to start.

 

Once I had it started, I turned on all the heat in the car and shut the doors and let it idle for about 5 minutes. After then, it was still blowing out ice cold. The coolant hoses didn't feel as hot as they should be for a car that's sitting still idling. In fact the closer I got to the radiator, they felt like nothing was flowing through them.

 

She doesn't know when the coolant was last changed. The only things I could think of would be the mixture was bad and the coolant is frozen somewhere or the heater core is block thus resulting in nothing but cold air. I don't know how the cooling system is routed on that car, but I wouldn't think a blocked heater core would prohibit the coolant from flowing through the radiator and prevent it from overheating.

 

This isn't the first time it happened. I guess 2 days ago it happened on her way home from work and she pulled over twice because it got so hot, and everytime it stalls out it's because she comes to a stop when it's hot.

 

The first thing I would tackle is replacing the CTS because if it's faulty, it could be screwing with enrichments. It still doesn't explain the cold air from the vents though.

[Crossle]

What is the mileage? Could be water pump impeller failure and I believe that is a timing belt car in which case it would be replaced as well.

 

Reason for mileage question is to see if it is right around the scheduled maintenance for t-belt replacement.

[evan9381]

post this on http://www.elantraxd.com ...the site just went to VB4, so its a little odd to navigate right now, but you'll get a lot more help there.

[Guest Removed]

is there coolant in it? what does it look like? it is very possible, stuff is plugged up, or the impeller has fell off the pump. to hard to tell just guessing. sounds like its frozen tho.

 

do you have a temp gun to point at the head and see if the engine is getting up to temp?

[tristanlee85]

I know the engine is getting up to temp just by the heat come off of it. The gauge itself will read just below halfway when idling. It only overheats when it's driven, but I guess overheating isn't the only time it stalls. I had it idling for a good 10 minutes today and the whole time it stayed just under 1/2 on the gauge. I brought the RPMs up to about 2500 for about 2 mins and then let off the throttle to idle it back down. The RPMs fell very low (300 - 500) and it stumbled, stalled, and I could not get it started again.

 

So, while there seems to be a coolant issue, there seems to be more. The oil looks ok, the coolant did look a bit dirty, but nothing terrible. It was so late at night I didn't get a chance to get too much detail from me. Hopefully tomorrow I can get out my gauge and measure the mixture.

 

I'll get the mileage for you later, but timing belt is something I'm not doing. lol My goal is to make this car so she can drive it home. Other maintenance is at her expense.

[mrblunt]

I had an 00 elantra and mine did this when my HG was shot. TB job wasnt too bad on this car and wasnt very expensive.

[tristanlee85]

Well I was also thinking HG is the issue, but put that to the back of my mind. It could explain the car dying after it heats up, compression sounds weak when cranking (I'll be testing that tomorrow), and I don't know if it's over-heated before and she just kept driving it. I doubt she did, but you never know. However, I haven't been able to do enough tests on it yet to see if the coolant is disappearing and if so where it may be going. I wish there were 48 hours in a day.