stv951

Head gasket blown.
Happened because the previous garage that had changed the pump didn't do a proper bleeding of the system, and car had overheated 2 or 3 times
I live in Athens, and the car that overheats is not mine. The car on the avatar is my 1st 996 C4S drifting in a parking lot at the Austrian Alps. No worries about high temperatures there.

Here we had 47C last week, which was an al time record since 1916......That was darn HOT!!!!

BruceP

I have no doubt that some of these cars run hot, but I think a lot of worry stems from the fact that most people haven't had a car with a real temperature gage for many, many years. The 'gage' you see in your Honda or Pontiac is little more than an idiot light disguised as a gage to look sporty. Even in my Rover, that needle stays planted right in the middle of the 'gage' no matter the season, the driving conditions, or anything else. There can be a blast furnace coming off that ol' V8, and it can be reeking of coolant, but that gage keeps insisting that nothing has changed. That's because it's not a real gage. The 996's is.

Kevin H. in Atl..

That is hot.
The hottest I have seen on my 3.4L is 106C.

Have you cleaned your radiators recently? I have found it necessary to do this every 12 mo's or so.
You must remove the front bumper cover and the radiator shrouds.
Then you can pull the AC condensor away from the radiator and clean between them. You would be amazed how much crap finds its way between the two.

10 GT3

You should consider upgrading to a 3rd radiator. I live in Texas and upgraded mine before last summer. I notice it runs 10-15 degrees cooler when tracking on hot days with the 3rd radiator.

colin.plastow

Here's a basic suggestion. Take a look at the ac condensors and see if a lot of the cooling fins are squished flat. A lot of debris (rocks etc) gets in there and it's moving at whatever speed you were doing at the time and the aluminum of the fins is quite soft and deforms easily. On mine I would say about a quarter to a third on each side were squished enough to more or less stop airflow and the rad is right behind the condensor of course. No air flow equals no cooling and that's a big chunck of the radiators not doing anything. On mine I would find that when stuck in traffic when the temps were high the engine would get hot enough that the computer would turn off the AC until the temp came down again. I spent a couple of hours last weekend straightening out most all of the fins and also blew a bunch of dust and other junk out with an air line. No super hot days or traffic so far to check if it's resolved the issue but I have a feeling it probably has.

Colin

MJBird993

Ouch. Is the shop stepping up and taking some responsibility for the blown gasket? Hopefully so.

Best of luck,

Michael

David A

You can ad a Factory 3rd radiator from the Euro X51 (manual only)
www.carnewal.com