I'm driving home today and the AC suddenly switches from ice cold air to hot air. As I'm screwing with the AC controls, the temperature alarm goes off and I see that my engine temp gauge is past the red. I pull off and let it cool down, then slowly make my way home.

The radiator took over a gallon of coolant. I drove around for a few miles tonight, everything stayed cool.

I've never had a car suddenly switch from running cool to running red hot like that. When the coolant gets below a certain level, does it just say "screw it" and evaporate the rest of the way?

Any ideas?

Find a mechanic. That's my car know-how. I can't even change my own oil. If I had to guess, I'd say it was running low on coolant for a while and just reached the breaking point. I had a car like that, and had to dump antifreeze mix into it every few months or it would overheat crazily just sitting idle at a stop light.

I've had women who did exactly the opposite, but to the same effect. Except that they don't always evaporate the way you'd wish.

Could be a cracked head. If it plays around again, get it checked out.

If you're lucky, the coolant gradually got low, and you happened to have not noticed. That made it run hot. That's about the best thing it could be.

If it's eating coolant, you've got a crack somewhere I think.

Crossing my fingers.

Still had coolant in the radiator this morning, drove to work with no problems.

I'm hoping that when I brought it in to get new brakes last week, they checked the fluid and accidentally left the cap loose. That's the theory that I'm hooking to my prayers right now.

Nice theory. I'd run with it.


But I'd carry along some extra coolant in the car.

Finally took the car in for repair. I think that I lucked out, sort of.

Since the engine ran hot before I knew I had a leak, people were telling me, "Cracked head gasket, thousand bucks at least." I'm not sure where the leak started, but after running hot I ended up with a trashed thermostat housing and a couple of fried hoses. So parts will be around a hundred, plus a couple of hundred for labor. Not the best case scenario, but far from the worst.

I've been dealing with a car conundrum lately. I recently went on vacation and drove hundreds of miles. The coolant reservoir kept needing to be topped off. And it has apparently been leaking into the vehicle and puddling in the floorboards! But never a hint of overheating, despite all the driving. It's like it leaks down to a certain level but no farther. I think I'm going to drive the vehicle home on Labor Day and leave it with Dad while I return on my motorcycle.

It's your heater.

Are you sure it's coolant leaking inside your car?

I had a steady drip on my passenger side. I followed the Car Talk guys' advice and had the hose that drains the excess water from the air conditioning system blown out. That cured that.

You'll have the unmistakable smell of coolant if any gets in your car. Even in vapor form. The minute you smell that smell, it's the heater core. Simple fix by a mechanic (depending on how much trouble it is to get up under your dash).

Coincidentally, our Impala had this very problem. The mechanic couldn't fix it so we carry around coolant and top it off every once in awhile. If it comes back we'll have to try the dealership.

Always keep pets away from antifreeze/coolant leaks.

He doesn't have a real Impala. That's the name of the car that he drives.

He's not feeding antifreeze to a deer Garp.

Geez.

AAAAAAAAARGHH!!!

I found that water had leaked out of my engine last night. I brought the car back to Goober, he said Gomer ran another pressure check and I don't have any leaks.

And then, on the way to work this morning, my tail light assembly just fell off of my van.

I've got Gremlins.

Or Impalas.

Well, Jay was right about the problem being the heater core. Dad diagnosed the same problem when he saw it. Then he took a look at how much trouble it would be to reach it through the dash and decided to have somebody else do the work. I left the Jeep with him and borrowed another vehicle to get home.

Yesterday evening as I was coming back from church I heard strange noises coming from the engine. Then they suddenly stopped. The AC also stopped, and a battery indicator light came on. I suspected that something had just happened to the alternator belt. I made it on home (it wasn't far) and opened the hood to check the belt. It was nowhere to be seen! It must be lying on the road somewhere near the tractor dealership. I'm thankful it didn't happen when I was on a trip of any distance. There's no way I would've made it any farther than I did.

I'm glad that Mom and Dad have let me drive their spare vehicles while I'm saving up for one of my own, but always driving something that's near the end of its useful life can be stressful....

That's what my wife says about me.

So, today Mom and Dad drove over and Dad and I replaced the alternator belt. The bolts we had to undo to loosen the alternator had seized and were nearly impossible to break loose. At one point Dad was underneath the van shoving upward on the end of a ratchet hard enough to raise the body up on its shocks! When the bolt finally broke loose the body dropped down across Dad's chest and had him pinned there until I lifted up on it. Good thing he wasn't out there alone!

Then we found that the belt was too long. We went to the local AutoZone to get the right one. They checked and checked and assured us that the one we had WAS the right one. Then Dad realized that he hadn't installed it right. We took it back home and finally got the belt on.