I noticed that my 1997 Camry CE was running hot when I was on the highway, especially when I was climbing a hill. Not in the red, but about half way to it from normal. It would cool back down after the hill, but still ran a bit warm on the highway. On other 'minor' roads, around town and what not, the temperature stayed within the normal range. Most of my driving is done on the highway BTW. Around 100 miles a day round trip.

I noticed that if I took the vehicle out of overdrive while climbing the hill it would bring the temperature down. Almost to the normal position, but not quite. I told my mechanic about it and he said that it sounded like a blown head gasket, but other than the vehicle running warm there were no other symptoms of this. I searched around and found that it could be anything from a bad thermostat, a radiator cap, head gasket ......blah, blah, blah.

About a week and a half ago I was climbing a hill on my way to work, running above normal temperature as always and I noticed that dreaded antifreeze smell. To make a long story short, it was the heater core. I had to have the car towed to my mechanic where he replaced the core. I asked if he thought we should replace the thermostat at that time and he said no, your thermostat is fine. How he could know this without doing a hot water test was beyond me, but he insisted that wasn't my problem. I was hoping that my whole problem was the heater core to begin with, maybe clogged, my heat never was the best anyway, but when I was driving home that day it did the same exact thing, ran hot going up hills and above normal at highway speed.

I did a bit more research and everything I found pointed to a bad thermostat. Being the easiest and cheapest thing to fix I brought it back to my mechanic and insisted that he change it, which he did.

Well, that was it. The car ran spot on normal temp. Up hills, down hills, high speed, low speed.......perfect!
So you would think.

Yesterday on my way home from work I stopped at a light and all of a sudden a plume of steam started coming out from under my hood. I pulled into a gas station, opened the hood and after a bit of looking around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Mind you, the car was running fine for 3 full days with no incidents. I ended up finding a crack across the top of the radiator about 6-8 inches long. There was antifreeze all over. WTF? When I first noticed the steam I immediately looked at my temp gauge and it was 100% normal. When I got back in the car it was still at normal. Being that it wasn't overheating I was able to get it to my mechanic. He was able to get a radiator on the spot and he put it in. I should mention here that the radiator he took out was only about 2 years old, if that. He put it all back together and we ran it for over an hour. I took it for a ride, we idled it, we revved it up in the lot......all of it. The car runs 100% normal. No overheating, no oil to water, no water to oil, no bubbles in the expansion tank, no seemingly high pressure in the hoses....nothing.

My contention is, if there were high pressure in the radiator wouldn't the cap have blown into the expansion tank before splitting the rad? The level stayed normal BTW. It seems to me that there are weaker points that would go before the rad. We replaced the cap BTW when we put the new radiator.

I drove the car home, about 60 miles and it ran fine. I stopped 3 times on the way to check everything out. All seems fine. No overheating, no overflow in expansion tank, no bubbles in exp tank and no seemingly high pressure in the hoses. I do notice that the lower hose stays very cold though, most of the time. My mechanic said that although that's not necessarily normal it may be normal for my particular car. The operating temp could not be better. It's as if the temp gauge needle is glued in place. It never moves from normal.

Well there you have it. I know this post is long, but I wanted to give all the details.
Could this be an underlying problem ie; head gasket, or just bad luck?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I know I'm new here and only found this place through Google.
I've had a lot of experience with Toyota vehicles and hopefully I can help some of you guys out one day as well.
Foe now I'm going to bounce around this lovely place and see if I can expand my knowledge of Toyota vehicles.


BTW, the above mentioned vehicle is a 1997 Camry CE with 343,000 original miles.

 

yo welcome to camry forums

wanna some useful info >>> https://www.camryforums.com/m_10968/..._/tm.htm#10968

 

If a bad head gasket the coolant in the overflow tank will get lower over time.

Heater cores do leak with age and a bad T-stat is not uncommon. A stuck T-stat can cause the problems you describe. Operate the car and see how things go over time.

 

dont wait alot as ur car done 343,000 miles these problems are common due to the usage & ageing of the car.

it took me a while by changing the thermostat affter that a radiator cap & flushing the radaiator & the crank ..... bla bla bla

everything seems ok but if i over speed or keep on pumping gas due to an emergency case or in a hurry .... WALA tossssss its overheated

now when i took it to a mechanic good that the damage was small as i needed only to slightly polish the head.

all the best ...

 

[sm=interesting.gif]but also:

[sm=wtf.gif]

How did that happen? (343,000 divided by 11 years = average of 31,200 miles per year)