Heating or A/C confusion
 

As you can expect, I've been chatting with various people about my coming trip next weekend to Switzerland. Now I'm getting conflicting advice about how to best keep the engine from overheating. For those who don't know, I suspect I've got bad head gaskets, and am taking the car down to my original dealer (an SVX enthusiast) to find out what's wrong, get an estimate, and hopefully get it fixed.

Some say I should roll (push button? :rolleyes: ) down the windows and put the heat on full.

Others say that if I switch on the air conditioning, then the second fan will come on and obviously two fans are better than one.

Sorry if I'm being extremely basic with this question but I frankly never really paid much attention to my climate control before. It worked, (still does) and that was good enough for me.

"I am extremely proficient at fixing my car: when something breaks, I get someone proficient to fix it!" :)
(quote attributed to ME)

Try bypassing the fan by dissconnecting it, then add a wire from the fuse box to a toggle switch, then a wire to the fan. Now you can controll the fan whenever you want. This is a temporary fix. Good luck!

The plain truth of the matter is that if you're planning on driving any engine with bad head gaskets more than a couple miles you're asking for trouble. You might make it without compounding the problem but then again you may make matters horribly worse. Besides frying the engine, blowing out the radiator, the hoses and heater core you could potentially toast the transmission. I'm not trying to scare you but these are distinct possibilities and I'd hate for something to happen and then have you ask why nobody told you what could happen.

Years ago, during a test drive with a fellow mechanic in a customers car, a head gasket blew and the sudden increase in cooling system pressure caused a heater hose to fail, gushing coolant under the right side of the vehicle. Being that antifreeze is slippery as oil, the car suddenly began fish-tailing at 45 mph when the rear tire lost traction in the stream of coolant. The point is anything can happen in a seemingly unrelated, chaotic event.

Well... now you got me worried. See, an official Subaru mechanic nearby did have this car for a WHOLE WEEK, and said that he checked everything, and didn't find any cause for the overheating. (I frankly don't believe that he checked everything, which is why I'm going back to my trusted Swiss guy.)

I don't know for sure that my gaskets are bad, but it is a reasonable guess.

We have a brand new rad, thstat etc (you can read my whole story in my previous thread HELP! Need Reasons to fix... ) Since then, we've been limiting ourselves to short trips, 10-20 km, and have had no overheating problems. Actually, the local guy is about 45km away, and we didn't overheat bringing the car home. (Not a nudge on the gauge.) So I figured I should be able to do at least 50-70km, then rest 1-2 hours, then another 50-70, another rest... until I'm there. I'm talking about 360 km or about 225 miles total to get there, over two days, so three stops each day or more if required. Will be stopping as soon as heat approaches to 3/4 mark or have gone 75km without overheating.

My Swiss mechanic said that if I was careful, then I should be able to limp my way over to his garage. He just warned me to bring along a 5 litre jug of distilled water, and keep checking the fluid level in the radiator itself (making sure it was first cooled down 'cause I don't want to get burned) So far we haven't lost any fluid since the rad was replaced a few weeks ago. But we haven't been driving it much.

When I specifically asked the local mechanic about head gaskets, he just shook his head and said that it would be a very big and expensive job, and the car wasn't worth it. He recommended that we simply keep driving the car and see what happens, since he didn't find anything wrong. I was NOT impressed with that answer.

If it hasn't been overheating or losing coolant you may have just had a bad t-stat or partially clogged radiator. I would do as you plan - allow enough time should something happen and take along a jug of water. You may just find that you no longer have an issue. Good Luck!

Whew... that's better :)

But, it did start to overheat that one day, with the new radiator, after a slightly longer one-hour trip on the autobahn, which is why we took it back to the mechanic, who didn't find anything, which didn't satisfy me, even though it hasn't re-occurred, which doesn't mean much since we haven't driven it a lot since, which is why I'm crawling back to Switzerland...
<pause for big breath - no reason to panic, only slight whimpering now - sigh>

Oh, well... back to my original question then... do I turn on my heating full blast, or my air conditioner? or maybe even just leave it on fan, although I believe that uses only one fan out of the two.

"Two to beam up, Scotty - me and the SVX"

If the car starts to over heat while your driving turn on your heater to help cool the engine. And it sounds like your heater core may be the problem.

Is the car over heating because you feel it or because the gauge is telling you this? Are you sure the fan goes on? Is the temperture gauge working fine? Did the mechanic check the temperture sensor if it works properly? Mechanics who don't know how to fix a problem usually give you a run around with a crazy price or 'it's not worth it'. Go to a trained Subaru mechanic with experience on the SVX before you make a decision.

If it is the head gasket, the heater wont help you much, if at all. The reason it overheats is because exhaust is getting pushed into your coolant, displacing the coolant with air, eventually the air escapes and coolant gets through again, cooling the engine, then the process repeats itself. At the first sign of overheating pull over and shut off the car, wait a little while then try again.

1. The gauge is telling me that I'm overheating
2. yes, the fans are working and have been inspected by an official Subaru mechanic at a Subaru dealership
3. yes, I assume the temp gauge is working properly because mechanic should have checked such a basic thing, plus the only time it went into the red, my radiator blew up.
4. don't know if mechanic checked temp sensor, but he kept car for a week and said that he checked everything possible, including pressure checks.
5. yes, I agree, which is why only official Subaru mechanics with at least some SVX experience have been allowed to do any sort of work on this car, and why I'm going back to my trusted Swiss Subaru dealer/mechanic (who also doesn't treat me like a dumb, dizzy blond just because my German isn't perfect and I happen to be blond - sigh. Sometimes (not always) dealing with Germans is like a timewarp back to 1950's with regards to how women are treated)

I think most of the time dealing with germans is a PITA regardless.

I would have added to drive with the rad cap loose as to not build up too much pressure.