After making contact with a deer my car needed extensive bodywork and a few internal doodads. On the top of the list was the radiator and air-conditioning radiator, I know there are two up front but which one is which I do not know... But anyway, the problem. I didn't notice it until yesterday, which was odd because it was in the low twenties here, the engine temp gauge is near the top and the red light was blinking and or illuminated solid red, indicating my car was overheating or about to overheat. When I turned off the car the fan still was running, but it only ran for about one minute. I believe my fluid level is fine considering they put on new radiators; it would only be smart to put in the coolant. Yesterday I started up the car after school and drove it home and the temp stayed in the middle, where on the same length and exact trip 5 hours earlier was buried in the red. Okay I was thinking maybe it was just one oddity I won't have to put up with again. I was wrong. This morning on the way to and from school nothing, it stayed in the middle, normal. Twenty minutes ago I went to go get a carwash and while in the car during it, it said the car was overheating again. I stayed calm and waited through the end of the touchless wash and pulled ahead onto a slight incline to exit the parking lot and go home and while waiting to turn in immediately dropped to normal levels and the red light went away. That was weird. I pulled up to the next stoplight and was sitting there and it went back up to the overheat indicator once again. I accelerated from the stoplight and after only about 1/8th of a mile it was back in normal temps and lasted that way until I was home. This is like weird, like I don't know whether to panic because my car is overheating or blow it off. I don't want to blow it off because my car could be over heating and that's bad and it's happened to me before. I'm going to make an appointment at the dealer if it persists, but I really can't figure out or think what would be causing this.

Thanks

Mike

 

Does the coolant expansion tank still have fluid in it?
It sounds like you might have air in the cooling system. With the car running at temperature and heater on, unscrew the bleed screw on the upper radiator hose (the one right in front of the engine) until something starts coming out. If it's air, you'll hear it; if it's coolant, you'll see it. If the system was properly bled, you should have a solid stream of coolant. If you all you get is air, keep the screw open until coolant comes out.

 

Could it be a thermostat issue? If the thermo is stuck closed it's possible that it's not flowing enough coolent to cool the engine during hard driving (inclines, accelerating, etc). I'm not very familiar with the mini's coolent system, but you might want to check out what the above poster said, air in the cooling system definitely wouldn't help it cool!

 

I'm betting its the wiring to the gauge.

Same thing happened to me ... but on the oil temp gauge. The thing fluctuated all over the place ... impossible.

Turns out the wire was frayed and grounding out. Since the did a lot of work, I bet, maybe, the wiring is frayed.

 

i originally thought it might be a guage too but why would the fan be on after i shut off the car? that would only happen if the car was only sensing an overheating condition

 

The summer months here regurlarly temp-out around 120+ during mid-day. The Mini never came even close to overheating, but the fan did often stay on for a minute or two after shutting off the engine. Mine is an '02, but I don't think your fan staying on has anything to do with the car overheating, or thinking it is overheating.

 

never, and i mean never, before has the fan stayed on after the car was shut off, so that's what I'm basing my judgement on.

 

Chile, did you ever get this resolved? I have a similar issue (but no deer ) . I saw in another post that the issue was the thermostat