WILL A BLOWN HEATER CORE CAUSE A CAR TO OVERHEAT
No a heater core alone will not cause a vehicle to overheat. The heater cores sole purpose is to transfer heat generated by the engine to the blower motor so that you can get heat from your car vents. A person could technically remove the heater core from the vehicle and connect the hoses together to bypass it, and the car will run as if nothing happened, minus the lack of heat in the vents.
If the car is overheating, there are three mai issues that could be happening. 1) The radiator is blocked and not allowing coolant to be cooled off before returning to the engine.
2) The water pump is broken. The engine relies on this pump to move the coolant throughout the engine. It may not leak as long as the gasket is alright but the impeller ( small fans on the inside of the water pump ) could not be turning.
3) Lastly and most commonly is a faulty Thermostat. The thermostat is the valve which opens and closes at certain tempuratures and decides if hot coolant stays in the engine or circulates to the radiator to be cooled off. If the thermostat fails, unless you have a failsafe one, will fail in the closed position keeping the hot coolant in the engine and causing it to overheat.
The thermostat is by far the cheapest of the issues so consider changing that first along with a coolant flush before considering putting a new rad or waterpump. You can usually get a thermostat, 2 jugs of coolant and a flush kit for about 50$ at pretty much any parts store. Becareful however not to drive a overheating vehicle as gasket burning and head warpage can occur, which will require rebuilding th head.
Good Luck
Yes, put a brand new thermostat in.
×