Not sure. He hooked up some thermometer seemingly underneath the dash as he was driving it. He mentioned the needle went above the 50/50 mark while he was driving, but never beyond a certain point. He only drove it for so long, however.

I agree with you that a tech would never turn away work. That is part of the reason I'm relieved. And I guess they're a pretty honest dealership there... a rarity in this day. Also, pretty reasonable for a diagnosis at $65. If you're looking for a good Caddy dealership (in terms of service) in the Boston area then private message me and I'll release the name.

In a car that's notorious for head gasket issues, it's very unsettling to sit in rush hour traffic on a 100 degree day with the Air Conditioner blasting as your temperature gauge is too high. I'm thankful because the warmest days of the year are behind us in the Northeast.

For now I guess I'm going to hold off on doing anything else.

Stealth, et all, thanks for all your help. Hope to learn more from this site.

 

i be going back and asking the teck about the temps. it will give you some satisfaction and
he will give them to you if he wrote them down or remembers.

Advice? IF you havent changed the coolant, do it asap.
then, never let it get older than 24 months. the headgasket issue is a combiantion of
old coolant, overheating, loss of fluid. It almost requires all three to make that happen.

as far as the Cadillac dealer .. feel FREE to post it, including the name of the TECH.
We dont mind posting such good people as that helps other members.
You wont get any grief from us here.

My Cadillac sits on the gauge at center, but i have seen it beyond center now and then.
I usually hear the fans kick on and the gauge move back to center.
however,
On of my non-Cadillac trucks, this works a bit different. the gauge sits about 1/4 of the way
except on a very hot day in slow traffic or running up a mountain. I have seen that gauge climb to
3/4 up more than once, i have had to shut down the A/C and a few times i even turn on
the heater to take more heat away. Moral of the story is that sometimes, the engine is comamnded to
put out more heat than normal.

 

gauge could be bad

 

He said the temp was in the 220s. I asked him if that was too hot (rhetorically) He said no. Coolant has been changed as of this july, and I gave it the tablets too.

The dealership was Olsen Cadillac in Woburn Mass. They were half the price of other dealers on the diagnosis fee and, as stated, they didn't try to charge me for work that didn't need to be done.

 

Hello Stealth,
Has anyone checked the water-pump belt? Maybe it is slipping.
I recently moved to Charlotte North Carolina and the temperature has been over 100 degrees most days and my 96 STS runs terribly in the heat.
The Power drops off, but not as much as yours, The Temperature guage does swing one or sometimes two marks past the half way mark, but not into the red, and I have a bad case of Spark Knock which mostly goes away at night when the outside temperature is less than 90 degrees.

So I would check the belt and then you have pretty much covered everything I can think of.
I am considering to remove my thermostat and wire the cooling fans to run whenever the engine is running. I have checked a couple places and there are not any oversize radiator for my car readily available.

When I bought the 96 STScar about five years ago, the thermostat was missing. It took a couple years for me to discover that there was not a thermostat in the car. I did install one and the car warms up faster and the heater works better during the winter.

Jon

 

i assume the mechanic took a look at the belts.

as for your engine, better check your timing. unless you have heavy carbon deposits, it shouldnt do that.

 

I assume they checked the belts, too. I wouldn't know the sound a bad belt makes but I'm pretty sure a mechanic would. And there's no leakage, so I think we're ok all around.

I did run the on board computer and I found a few codes. But like an idiot, I accidentally erased them after a run through. I'll wait and see which come back on, if any, and report in.

On that note, what does it mean when they say "ALL ID" when running the test?

 

who is they ?

 

when you run the vehicle's onboard computer and you have the choice of running "ALL Codes" or "All ID"