Ok, so my car is boggling my mind. I recently went on a road trip to Wisconsin. I left the house in 30degree weather, got 70 miles north of Indianapolis and realized my temperature gauge hasn't moved, and the heater is still blowing Ice cold air.

So, I stopped and after about 20 mins of idling and slightly revving the engine the temperature gauge got to the bottom line of normal. Got some warm air and resumed my trip. No sooner than I got back on the interstate that the temp gauge slammed right back down to the C for cold. Lost my heat.

So, I stopped again. Pulled the relay for my radiator fans. Idling car warms a little faster but the same issue then resumes as soon as I start my drive anywhere.

I've checked the fluid. I've checked the thermostat, with the boil test. When I took the thermostat out I had just done a 10 mile drive, the car was still on C. The hoses were warm but not hot. The fluid which should've burned me was lukewarm. No, it's not water I had fresh fluid put in when I had new fans put in last month. Because, I had the opposite problem.

I'm freezing whenever I drive, I can't thaw the ice off the windshield. A little help would be appreciated.
Cavalier 1996 2.2l


All I want is my heat to work.

Sorry but it still sounds like a thermostat issue; I can’t remember when or if ever testing a thermostat with this method has proven anything.
Doing a

Quote

has been proved to be a faulted test because of lack of coolant flow and the small amount of liquid.
Change the stat with an OEM and go from there.

Dan.

Canadian "EH"

Agree with Dan as always. This just must be a problem with the thermostat. I'll still warm up a new one and watch them open and close especially if it's a difficult one to replace. It's not very accurate and doesn't have the water swooshing by it constantly like it does in the engine.

It can be hard to see that a t-stat really closes tight and if just a tidbbit open in cold weather cars can run cold,

T
Tom Greenleaf - MetroWest Boston - USA
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http://www.autoacsystems.com/tomgreenleaf/