My car heats up in stop n go traffic. The temperature gauge can go as high as to the 'RED'. I adding water and coolant everyday. Are the fans supposed to come on as I am driving and the car heats up?

I would have the cooling fans checked. When the car is moving there is air forced through the radiator naturally. But when stopped, the car relies on the fans to pull air through the radiator to pull heat out of the coolant.

bubbling when the coolant is full indicates a head gasket problem. have a compression test done to check for gasket/cracked head. have a flow test done on the radiator as the cores may be blocked reducing coolant flow.

The powertrain computer turns the fans on through the cooling fan relays, based on information from the coolant temperature sensor. The fans will only come on when the coolant temp. is pretty high-varies by manufacturer, but it is over 200 degrees, some as much as 230 degrees. So the fans will not come on when engine is started, but they should come on before the engine overheats. You should have them checked. Also find out if the temp. gauge sending unit is separate and different from the coolant temperature sensor-on most cars, they are separate, maybe not on yours?
Free advice from a shadetree-not worth a lot, eh? lol.

If the temp is high at freeway speeds then the thermostat would be suspect. If the temp is high in slow traffic then suspect the cooling fans or its controls

Hi,
If you start out with a cold engine, the Bonneville should not overheat traveling one mile, with out the A/C on.
If you are in stop and go traffic, roll your windows down, turn heater on high temp and high fan, and shut the Bonneville off at stop lights.
Watch the heat gauge.
The coolant fans not working may be a fuse, relay, or temperature sending unit switch.
Best Wishes,
Wayne

thats what its supposed to do.if you were loosing power then you would have a problem....also if you have to constantly add water.

when the level of coolant drops in the motor the heater core is the first to be without
because it sets up high
so you need to check the level
and check where the coolant is going
to make the level drop

It actually sounds to me like you're low on coolant. My Jeep leaks coolant and whenever it gets low the temp gauge will go real high and then drop, and the heater doesn't work well. This is because the cooling system of your car is supposed to be a closed system, full of coolant and no air. When coolant leaks out, the space it used to occupy is now occupied by air, which does not transfer heat well. When 'air' is passing through your cooling system, no heat can be transferred from your engine to the heater and radiator, resulting in a hot engine and no heat at the heater. Then when a pocket of water passes through the system, the temperature gauge quickly falls as the water absorbs the heat from the engine. The hot water that cools the engine is where the heater gets it's heat from as well, so when water passes through the heater core, the heater works, but when it's filled with air, it doesn't.

Hot water runs through the heater core regardless of whether or not your thermostat is open or closed. That's why your heater works in the winter even before the engine is at normal operating temperature. The fact that the heater stops working is a good sign that the thermostat is probably not the culprit.

As for the water pump. If the water pump was bad, your temp gauge would go into the red and stay there. Water pumps generally don't work intermittently. Either it's good and ot works, or it's bad and it doesn't.

However, if you are in fact low on water, as I suspect, it means you probably have a leak somewhere. The leak could be in the water pump housing gasket, so depending on where you take it for repairs, they may try to sell you a new water pump anyhow. So just beware of that.

Seems like you might have a couple of problems. First the gas gauge, check your fuses to see if they are still good. Then check the wiring as you may have a short or a bad ground. Lastly if everything checks out then you may have faulty sensor in the gas pump housing in the gas tank, and or faulty temperature sending unit located on the motor. As for your your overheating issue you may have a head gasket leak which these little motors are prone to having, or just a general coolant leak. I deduced this because you're constantly having to refill with water. You have a leak somewher, but to narrow it down to your head gasket check your oil to see if it's got coolant in it. It will look like chocolate milk and may even smell like coolant. Also check your tailpipe with the car running in park and up to operating temp, if you see white smoke coming out the tailpipe that white smoke isn't smoke but water vapor, caused by water entering the combustion chamber from the leaking head gasket and exiting the exhaust. Also you may have a faulty fan switch on your radiator. This would cause your engine to heat up drastically in bumper to bumper traffic because when you're driving cool air is rushing through your radiator, and when you slow down and stop so does the air flow, and if your fan doesn't kick in your radiator isn't able to do it's job and cool the coolant. Hope this helps.

Cooling Fan Malfunction. Your radiator fans are most likely not working. That's why the temperature is OK when you're driving full speed and the wind is cooling your radiator. You need to check and/or replace your cooling switch module and radiator fans (most likely it's the cooling module). If you were sitting idle or in stop-n-go traffic for an extended period of time, your car WOULD overheat because the fans aren't kicking in cooling your radiator - then you would see all of the cooling system water spill out of the coolant reservoir, before this would happen your temperature gauge would go to the red and the digital dislpay would flash a thermometer (indicating you're about to overheat in 2 mintues). I hope this helps someone out there - Yes, it happened to me in the middle of nowhere.