Overheating ....

A couple of days ago, I got a shock of my life. It happened like this. I was driving to a friend's house at Putra Heights with my grandson, Iman, as passenger. I took the usual route via Jalan Tujuan, driving at a moderate pace in the middle of the road and then making a U-turn in order later to turn left and drive through the main USJ12 road, over several annoying speed breakers before finally entering the Jalan Puchong-Hicom road where I made a U-turn under the flyover.

I stopped at the traffic lights and was on the right lane. To my left a group of motorcyclists had gathered and were revving up their bikes. As I was in front and wished to turn left, I planned to be well ahead of the motorcyclists in order to safely turn left at the entrance to Putra Heights, which was a short distance from the traffic lights.

As soon as the lights turned green, I accelerated my 350Z hard and quickly turned to the left well ahead of the motorocyclists. I drove a further 100 metres or so to turn into the housing estate where my friend lived. On reaching his house gate, I horned and got out and left the car engine running with Iman inside.

My friend greeted me and beckoned to enter his home. I told him I could not stay long and sat down to conclude the business in about 5 minutes. Apologising to him that I could not accept his cup of coffee, I got out of the house and while I was on his porch, I heard my friend saying that there was water coming out of the car. I went around the car to inspect and to my horror I smelt something burning. I realised then that the car was overheating. I rushed to inside the car and managed to glance at the water temperature meter to see that the needle was high before switching off the engine.

Questions raced through my mind. Had I not put water in the radiator ? But I know that there's always water in the radiator since I last opened the bonnet. Was my radiator fan running ? Was it the aircon water that was coming out of the car ?

My friend helped me in opening the car bonnet and I saw that water was boiling in the radiator holding tank and that the engine was really heated up with small clouds of steam everywhere. While I let the car engine to cool down, I discussed with my friend as to what actually happened. He reckoned that the cooling fan malfunctioned, which was the usual cause of engine overheating. And I agreed, since I once experienced earlier that the water temp meter did go up high during one occassion when I was driving before it settled in the middle.

Meanwhile I went back inside the house to discuss further with him. After about 30 minutes or so, I decided to check the car again while my friend was bringing a few bottles of water he collected from the kitchen. He poured water in the holding tank to full while I started the engine.

The needle dropped down from its high position while warm water circulated in the engine. I noticed that the radiator fan was still not running. Closing the bonnet, I decided to drive around near the house and after a few minutes the needle settled steadily in the middle. I bid my friend farewell and drove out of the housing, asking Iman to concentrate looking at the needle as I drove. Everything seemed to work fine when the yellow engine symbol on the dashboard appeared. I was really worried.

I drove to a nearby Shell station and asked the station operator, an old friend, if he could tell me why the symbol appeared, without telling what had happened before. He at once told me that it had something with the "sensors" and advised me to check with Nissan mechanics to rectify it using their computer device. He added this was a small matter.

I drove to Zaibar Motor since it was on the way to where I wanted to go initially. The salesman told me the same thing and advised me to get assistance from expert mechanics with computerised diagnostics tools and added that this was a small problem that could be fixed in a few minutes.

I then left for home driving at a moderate pace and with Iman watching intently at the meter to warn me if the needle went up high. The driving was fine and, until I switched off the engine at the car park, the yellow engine symbol was still lighted up. Since then I had not driven the car nor taken it to be diagnosed. Let the car be really cool before I take it to APD.