No heat and overheating problem 2000 olds Intrigue

[Dylan Gilbertson]

Quick specs on the car – 2000 Olds Intrigue GLS 3.5 v6

Things ive attempted,
– Flushed the block and radiator
– Replaced radiator hoses
– Replaced Thermostat/ housing (its combined)
– Burped the cooling system
– Did a 60/40 mix for the Minnesota weather

Issues
– Low coolant light is still on (filled it to max)
– No heat when the car sits but randomly gets heat when your driving
– After a longer trip (30 min) and you sit the car will start to overheat but wont steam or blow coolant.
I can crank the heat and the temp will fall to the half mark within 25 seconds. Then stay normal for the
rest of the car ride. Even while I drive it does this to e too

Conclusion
I’m at the point where im about to hook up a space heater to the car battery and get heat that way! My hands turn to ice on the way to work in the morning! Any help is greatly appreciated!

Topic

[Erin]

I used to have a 94 grand prix that did exactly the same things. Mine had the 3.4 DOHC (LQ1) which isn’t much different than the 3.5
Bleeding the cooling system didn’t seem to help mine either.

When you say start to overheat, does it actually overheat or do the fans just kick in to settle things?

The good news here is it is unlikely your engine is going to just crap out. Mine did that for 20,000 miles before I sold it because of various other problems I got tired of dealing with. Never did pinpoint the problem.

One thing about the low coolant light – on a lot of W-bodies, it does that no matter what.

There is a W body forum out there where they may be more attuned to your particular problem.

[Dylan Gilbertson]

The car does “overheat” but its weird cause the motor with a temp laser says its only around 120-140? I dont understand this at all! I took the car for an hour drive today, had heat! So i turned the blower on about midway and eventually the air got cold. I turned off the fan and drove a bit more. Then to see if I had head after 10 min i turned on the fan again and boom! heat! WTF is going on man!

[trussell beam]

hi im truss. ive had a very similar problem in the past, i owned a 97′ grand prix se 3100 v6. i took out the thermostat before i performed a head gasket repair. because my car over heated daily. and pontiac is definately notorious for blown head gaskets, i dont wana say ur vehicle has that issue but it sounds alot like a coolant problem. when it comes to heat, it all pretty much comes down to the thermostat. sometimes they can be stuck open and that wont deliver heat, and with it remaining closed can cause the high tempatures. so theres a good chance you have a defective heater blower rely/motor. as for the headgasket issues, when water gets on to your cylinders it can definately mess up alot of the hvac system. just a little insight on what could be happening. espeasially with pontiac. good luck to you

[Author]

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