Steam from coolent tank

[cerbylondon]

Just picked my cerbera up from the garage due to overheating problems. The guy at the garage says the temp gage is broken and needs replacing and the engine is fine. Arrived home after a ten minute drive, shocked to see huge amounts of steam coming from the coolent tank and making noises like a steam train. Cannot speak to guy at the garage till monday as he is closed at the weekends, can anyone shed some light or have any ideas on the problem.

[jayzee]

Could be the coolant bottle cap. I know on some cars this can fail.

[hugepiece]

or it could be a dirty connection on the temp sender that turns the fans on - mine did this on the way home from buying it, took it off and cleaned up contacts and was good as gold since

[cerbylondon]

Thanks guys, still no joy back at the garage!

[kojak]

Air lock in the system.

[marcus1970]

cerbylondon said:

Thanks guys, still no joy back at the garage!

Is it at a CERB garage/indi, or a main dealer, or just 'a garage'?

The next place to be looking if the coolant cap is ok, is under the coolant tank. There are hoses and jubilee clips underneath. The hoses can split and the jubilee clips can corrode and also cause perishing of the hoses.

The garage should be able to sort this prob out a piece of cake.

MB

[speed8]

Before the clouds of steam, which might just be the seal on the cap (VW item if I remember right), was it really overheating or was the gauge just reading high. Only asking because on some cars the pipe from the gauge runs very close to the exhaust and makes the gauge over read. Check it against the ECU temp with the software. It can read about 20degC difference once up to working temp.