hi, im new to this forums and having some issues with my car and can only hope someone out there that can help me out..its been stressing me out lately and i dont know what to do...

i have my 2006 infiniti for 6 years now and its at 107k miles and lately its been overheating on me every 10minutes into the drive ...i dont get heat from cabin either and i took it in to a shop they replace thermostat/radiator/pressure test etc cost me 800$ and not yet solve anything...if someone who had to experience this before and willing to help, please help me i will pay for you time

 

or if anyone can recommend a good shop with expert mechanic who work on infiniti's besides the dealership would also help ! thanks in advance!

 

Omg...they saw you comin. $800 for a thermostat? Wow. That's robbery.

Anyway, they didn't bleed the system correctly. Here's what I want you to do: open the hood, and at the rear of the engine bay (passanger side) there's a little plastic cap on a hose with a screwdriver hole on top. Unscrew that cap, remove the radiator cap and start the engine. Turn the heater on full blast, Fill the radiator until you see coolant running thru the hose that you unscrewed the plastic cap from. Put the plastic cap back on.

Once the car reaches normal operating temp turn it off and squeeze the lower radiator hose until you feel hot liquid fill it up. Top off the radiator accordingly. Continue doing this whole process until the radiator is full and stops accepting coolant.

Once its full put the radiator cap back on, make sure the plastic cap is back on and take it for a spin. When you get home let it cool ALL THE WAY DOWN and check coolant level again. Fill radiator and overflow tank accordingly and you should be good to go.

 

no they did a diagnostic that took 3 hours..and replace radiator and thermostat and still no success

 

It's a heater core, and it's going to cost a lot to fix.

 

today while test driving it i turned on the heater and it worked but when at cold start idle it would only blow cold air...

 

Did they run a block test to see if you're head gasket is blown?

Does it still overheat after those replacements or just blowing cold air? If it still blows cold air most likely it's air in the system or the heater core.

 

yes they ran all the tests and said gasket is good..and yes it still overheats after all those replacements
now they want to change out the water pump but i wasnt down for that because i feel like they are just replacing parts that doesnt need to be replace it only blows cold air while im idling from cold start but once i drive i get heat again if that helps.

 

They said they test for hydro carbon to see if it leak thru the exhaust and simply said no I guess that's 1 way of testing for blown head gasket?

 

The water pump is driven by the timing chain, so I don't see how it's not working. Unless the fins are rusted off or something. I had a water pump go bad on mine and my car just turned 8, lol. The bearings went bad and you can hear those. I also replaced that myself and it can run anywhere from 500-1200 in labor charges at shop, which is why I did it myself, lol.

Does your oil look like chocolate milk? Sounds like they didn't get all the air out of the system. You can try bypassing the heater core to see if that's the problem. You'd need to buy a hose and connect the two ports coming out of the firewall.

You can test using the exhaust I guess, I used a 25 dollar tester from AutoZone, which does the same thing.

 

Update : so today i follow this link's procedure of bleeding http://forums.nicoclub.com/2003-g35-...p-t466804.html. Attempted these repeated steps 3-4 times then finally i got heat in the cabin..which is a good sign and no cool leak last i checked..Then i finally took her out for spin for a good 30-45 mins no overheat, temp guage stayed a normal the whole way and before i did this bleeding procedure it would over heat within 10-15 mins into the drive..so i think i made some progress but after that long drive when i got home pop up the hood and saw my coolant reservoir over the max roughly about a little more then half of the reservoir tank....is this normal? will it keep going up to the top and boil over?i normally dont check under the hood until this overheating occurred...any help is appreciated thanks!

 

You should be good and it was probably some air in the system. I'd go back to the shop though and see if they can reimburse you a little bit. They didn't do a complete job and I'd be pissed off, lol. I don't take my car to the mechanic anymore unless I have to and have bled the coolant three or four times and it's the one thing I dread doing, lol.

I usually keep a jug of coolant in the car for about a week or two after bleeding the system and topping of the reservoir as needed.

Your heat should be scorching at idle and if so then your good. If there is too much coolant in the reservoir just suck it out with a turkey baster.

Sucks it cost you 800 bucks though to fix that. I did all that work myself for less then 100 dollars!

 

thanks for your help! i really appreciate people on these forums actually take their time and help others out i drove into work tonight about 30mins free way no problem, the overflow didnt boil and everything stayed at normal. With that being said should i bleed my system again from time to time? to maybe get all the trap air out or i shouldnt mess with it and move on.

 

You only have to bleed it if you replace one of the parts again. You just replacer the thermostat and radiator tho, so you should be all good.

 

^agreed only if you replace one of the parts does it need to be bled OR possibly if the reservoir runs dry and it sucks in some air, which is probably hard to happen in these cars. If there are any tiny air bubbles they'll eventually work themselves out. It's a closed system, so the amount of coolant shouldn't vary too much.

I'm still curious though, before you brought it to the mechanic and spent 800 bucks. Was there any work you know of done on the cooling system?