Gary,

Fans aren't the issue. It overheats at 65 mph in 30 degree weather...

I am going to check for white smoke from tailpipe, although HereKittyKitty said his had white smoke showing just once.

 

I have run into this numerous times before and could never get a leak down test to pick up anything either. I had to speak to a DTS about the issue. What happens is you can bleed all the air out of the system and everything is fine, go drive the car and as the motor gets hot there are small pinholes that expand in the headgasket that allow air to get into cooling system. There will be no signs of oil in coolant or anything else. Just the re-occurring air pocket,water rushing sound behind the dash when driving and no heat at idle. Hope this helps guys

 

I also smelled coolant. Around the car was always "hot", no heater/ blowing cold air, fans came on "prematurely" during a short riding distance, in other words the sensor's started to notice the car was overheating.

 

Can you try running the car with no thermostat? Will take forever for the car to warm up but it would eliminate the thermostat.

 

OK, for what it's worth- Just got a call from my mechanic (who I trust BTW). He says it's the head gasket. Just going to bite the bullet and git er dun!. A very slow leak, but with a head gasket, it doesn't matter how big, you just have to get it fixed. He quoted me $1600 which probably isn't too bad for this job. I could do it for the price of the machine shop plus gasket, but since it's 700 miles away now- not an option!

Thanks to all of you for your help and advice! Good call HereKittyKitty, and Infinitidude (Jason)!!

Moral of the story- no matter how many people are clamoring to buy a certain car, you are looking at, insist on a long test drive and have it checked out etc. I only paid $6250 for this car- which is very reasonable, but now adding the 1600, plus about 200 with the other garages, it's now an $8000 purchase- SURPRISE!!!!

 

Now I'm going to plead with the previous owner to help me out a bit here. Probably a futile effort, but hey, there are still a few people in the world who have good character.

Anyone care to guess how much I'll recover from him?? I'm actually thinking maybe $5-600. Maybe I'm being a bit naïve, but he is a nice guy- claimed he had no idea that his car was overheating when he sold it to me.

 

I have a hard time believing the previous owner didn't know about the problem. It's probably why he's selling it. He knew a casual test drive wouldn't show a problem. good luck