I am working on my daughters saturn i have replaced the radiator(it had a hole in it and could not get shop to work on it), i have replaced the water pump, and the thermostat. The problem i am having is i cannot get the car to quit overheating. I thought maybe i just got a bad thermostat but it checked out good. After a while i noticed the cap was bad so i replaced it. After replacing the cap i started the car and let it idle after about 10-15 minutes, the temperature guage was in the red and the light was on showing low coolant but yet the tank is full and the hoses felt like they was about to bust. Can anyone give me a suggestion on what to try next. the car has a 4 cylinder engine with ohc. thanks for any help yu can giveEdited by: sw2cam

 

well my guess is it is some type of sensor. temp sensor maybe? but im not 99 percent sure ha. i dont know much about saturns.

 

ok well... first off the light is for low coolant/high temp (according to 95 owners manual) and all s series are 4 cylinders and having an sl1 implies a 1.9 sohc... just sayin... as for over heating, if it has been overheating for a while and still is, there maybe a bigger problem (cracked head/gasket) that would reqier alot of work... check to see if the fans are comming on after the car gets to operating temp (about half way up the heat gauge) if not first, check the connections, it is verry easy to froget to hook something back up, if they are hooked up then check the fuses both under the hood (to the drivers side of the enginge compartment near the battery) and also in the interion (passenger side of the center console kick panal) if these arent it then you may have a bad fan. if the fans are working properly then try running the car without the thermostat, like i said if you drive it too much with it overheating it can cause major internal damage (and its not that hard to blow up a saturn motor either)

i dont have a vast knowlage of saturns inparticular but i do know about cars ingeneral overheating (i have blown up 2 cars from overheating) this is my best advice and i hope it helps... good luck!!

 

thanks for your help, i do know that we did not have this problem before i changed radiators, so i am also wondering if maybe something is wrong with the radiator

 

It seems to me that if the hoses fell like thier about to burst then you have a clog somewhere in your coolant system try a really good flush of the new radiator and the engine.. thats all i can think of....
BRG''sFSTSL1

 

Another place to check is for a clogged heater hose. This will cause an overheating situation and most people overlook them.

 

Sounds like you have two seperate issues.

When the needle gets to the red, does the fan come on? At idle or in traffic, the needle will get almost into the red, then the fan will come on. This is not a design flaw and the engine is not overheating. Itw working as designed.

If your fan is not coming on, then you have a bad ECTS (engine coolant temperature sensor), sensor connector, fan motor or relay. They usually fail in the order. Rarely is it a clog or bad thermostat.

As for the low coolant light. That is extremely common. Its due to a stuck float sensor inside the coolant tank rasevoir. Remove the tank and throughly clean it with hot water and diswashing soap. This usually solves the problem. But if it doesnt, you need a new tank. The sensor itself is not replacable.Edited by: Low Saturn