vauxhall astra F 1.4 - Car seems to be running hot

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Thu 20 May 2010 17:41
vauxhall astra F 1.4 - Car seems to be running hot - MrD

Driving my gf's car today it seemed to be running rather hot it was always above 100 with the fan on 2 and sometimes 3 even after stopping for around 10mins the temp had not dropped

later got the car upto around 50mph and it started to cool to around half still with the fan on 2

this seems to be running hotter than it should i have checked to coolant and it is not a good colour looks a little brown and the car does seem to be going through oil quite quickly (cant see a leak or drops on ground) do you think i would be right to think head gasket?

the car has done 105k and does stutter at times when driving (dont know if this could be related)

any help would be appreciated cheers

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Sun 13 Jun 2010 22:51
vauxhall astra F 1.4 - Car seems to be running hot - Philflies

I too have the same problem, a 1997 1.4 Astra. Running hot for the last couple of weeks. No disernable reason. Coolant and Oil levels are good but fan kicking in after 20min on the the motorway (60-70mph). Less of an issue around town. Seems a bit opposite to the norm? Never used to be an issue. If anything it always ran cooler than it should.

Any Astra guru's out there with answers or suggestions for MrD and myself?

Any pointers gratefully received.

Phil

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Fri 18 Jun 2010 11:03
vauxhall astra F 1.4 - Car seems to be running hot - John F

Can you cool it by putting the heater on full? You should get loads of really hot air from it. If not, the water isn't circulating properly. In my son's 12yr old Citroen Xsara this was a gradual onset problem with no loss of coolant, apart from the occasional steam overflow when it got too hot. I suspected water pump failure and took a punt on a repair. Sure enough, all the plastic vanes had disappeared leaving just the metal flanges rotating uselessly. Perhaps your pumps are of similar design.

I'm surprised this problem isn't mentioned more frequently on this site - there must be loads of 10yr old cars out there with this sort of failing water pump. Perhaps they don't catch it in time and the head gets too hot.......warps.......sc*** car. Or even misdiagnose it as head gasket failure - ......and sc*** the car.

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Mon 21 Jun 2010 11:39
vauxhall astra F 1.4 - Car seems to be running hot - Philflies

Thanks for the suggestion, will get someone to take a look at the waterpump.

Just out of interest, would a partially blocked exhaust contribute to high running temp? The waddding from the back box is making its escape throught the exhaust pipe!

Cheer

Phil

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