HELP!! Temp gauge needle going crazy!!

Well i was on my way home from a members house when i noticed barely since my light for rpm gauge and temp gauge are out, that my needle had shot up to Hot or past hot, i thought my car was overheating

so i stopped and looked in the coolent resv. and it had about a inch or two left of coolent, so i looked into the raid. but it had plenty almost all the way to the top.

so i poured in coolent into the resv, just in case and let the car run for about 15 minutes, but the temp guage stayed stuck at hot at the redline, so I turned on the a/c for about 5 to make sure it was really overheating, but nothing it was fine with the a/c running, but the weird thing is if the car was overheating the fan on the right of the raid( facing the car looking into the engine). woud have turned ont rite? it never did, the fan on the left side(next to the battery) turned on only whent he turned on the A/C and turne doff when i shut it off, the a/c. so i just went home not knowing if the car was gonna over heat or not, but i went 80 the whole way home and the needle stayed at hot, but i made it, took 44 minutes to get home

I let it rest over nite and started it in the morning, it shot up right below half way, where it would normally be after the car got heated up, but it shot there right away, and after about 5 minutes it shot up to full on Hot again, and while i was driving home from school today, the temp needle was moving up and down from hot to little above half way and back and forth, till after about 10 minutes it stopped at Full hot again??

please someone help me with this!!!

The AC will do nothing to cool the engine down if it were overheating. Turning on the Heater to full blast would be the best thing since you’d be taking some of the heat out of the coolant that way.

The fan next to the battery only comes on whent he AC is on, and the other fan is the one that comes on when your car overheats.

Maybe your car is over heating and the fan just doesn’t work. But from the way you described your coolant levels, it sounds like your thermostat went bad and you’re just getting a bad signal. It could also be your water temperature switch.

-Steve

Originally posted by DAY U IZ
[B]The AC will do nothing to cool the engine down if it were overheating. Turning on the Heater to full blast would be the best thing since you’d be taking some of the heat out of the coolant that way.

The fan next to the battery only comes on whent he AC is on, and the other fan is the one that comes on when your car overheats.

Maybe your car is over heating and the fan just doesn’t work. But from the way you described your coolant levels, it sounds like your thermostat went bad and you’re just getting a bad signal. It could also be your water temperature switch.

-Steve [/B]

yea only reason why i turned on the A/c was to test to see if my car would overheat, cause we didn’t know if it was overheating even though th needle was at red, the car ran fun, and i drove home like stated above at 80 for 44 minutes and it still stayed at hot but nothing happened

first thing: when was the last time you changed your thermostat? is your radiator fans and radiator OEM?

lastly, i’ve never heard of a cluster going bad yet. maybe try someones else gauge cluster?

I think something must be wrong with your normal fan.(or maybe something is wrong with mine!) When I turn on my AC both fans come on.

I just changed my thermostat and it fixed a similar problem. The parts were <$10 and it took all of 40min to replace.

HTH

seems from what J. reads from what i posted my Water pump has gone out arghhhhhhhhh

My gauges went out on mine. My speedometer, odometer, and miles (i don’t know what it’s called [trip meter?]) driven went out. the needle for the speedometer went crazy, got stuck at like 80MPH (when the car was off) then eventually fell off. A couple digits on my Odometer melted, so now my car is stuck at like 164k miles. My gas gauge, rpm, and temp work. The temp one changes though, if I’m going down a hill and neutral it, the temp goes to super low, as if the car were off. I never found the problem and I still drive like that. Oh well. Just make sure that your engine is grounded correctly. I didn’t ground my engine correctly once and my electrical system was all out of wack.

Peez

I just experieneced the exact same problem two weeks ago!
I replaced the thermostat and still did it so i replaced my radiator still overheated so i called my mechanic and he told me to go and buy an OEM thermostat and put it in. I dont know why but it worked and the thermostat i replaced originally looks identical to the oem thermostat but either way i dont have a problem now!