I have an 04 g coupe 5at with 153k that I have owned for 4 years now and never had any problems besides general maintenance. Yesterday on my way to work i was doing about 65mph down the highway and hit a piece of 2x4 wood in the road. Everything was good i got to work, went to leave work 8 hours later and i drove about 20 miles back into town and my cooling fan was running super loud. I thought to myself surely it hasnt always been this loud so i went to bed and got up today for work and started driving about 5 miles into driving at 40mph i came to a stop and heard it running super loud again, got to a redlight about 15 minutes later and sat there for a minute and the temp gauge went above normal but not into the red where i should really be worried, it went roughly 3 marks above the dead center of the temp gauge. Also, idk if this will help but the air condition was cranked almost all the way up when this happened. I still have heat and i tried to recreate the overheating by just sitting at idle but couldnt get it to budge.

I checked all of my fluids and everything is full, im stumped on what it could be?

 

Check to see if your radiator or other parts in the front of the radiator and cooling system are all mashed up. It may have bent a ton of the fins on the radiator if it got smacked by the piece of wood you hit. Also very likely is that the 2x4 hit one of the fans and broke off or bent some of the blades so that they are grinding against something as they spin if they are even still spinning at all.

 

partyman thanks for the reply, even with the splash shield still fully in place do you think its possible the board could have really gotten in there and damaged it. i hit the piece of wood with my passenger front tire so i will check in that area tomorrow. i havent had a change to look at it in the daylight since i work 2nd shift and its always dark when im awake lol. Will be taking a day off tomorrow to get it checked out. Ive been doing lots of research and i honestly think one of my fans quit working becuase i stopped and heard my fan go into 3 different speeds and the last speed i heard it running sounded like the fan was full blast trying to keep it cool.

 

The fans are a known problem area on our cars but it seems coincidentally strange that your car would suddenly start doing this right after it got hi by the 2x4.

 

I know, I mean what are the odds. Will post update later today with results.

 

Both of my fans are spinning at full speed with ac on and off but it only overheated once with ac on full blast and it wasn't really over heating just running a bit hot at idle in the shade at 86°f. I turned the air off and revved the engine a few times and it dropped right back down to a little below the normal Mark. Hasn't moved back up and it's been sitting idling for 20 minutes now.

 

Might be time to clean out the fins on the radiator and make sure it's breathing right. Dirty or plugged fins can seriously impact a vehicles ability to stay cool.

Are you running a 50/50 mix of coolant and distilled water too? Overly saturated coolant mixtures (not enough water) also reduces the cooling effectiveness of the system.

 

This might be a good time for a complete inspection and to replace the water pump, thermostat, belts, hoses, and a coolant flush if you intend to keep the vehicle.
Might save you from being stranded or late for work.

Just my $.02

Telcoman

 

Thanks for the advice, I have been driving my 03 maxima the past week since this happened. I haven't had a day off to look at it. But the next day I drove it to work again with the ac off and never did overheat. I think I'm just going to get oem thermostat, water pump, coolant flush sometime soon.

My fans seem to run on the highest level at all times warm or cool weather ac on or off. It's bugging the heck out of me because I haven't lost any coolant, heat works perfect, ac never blows warm always ice cold.

Could I get some jumper wires and power the fans seperately where only one kicks on at a time to see if one is working harder than the other or would I have to actually get the car to operating temp and disconnect one at a time to see if one is putting out more then the other. Because they only run super loud after it reaches operating temp.