Is this how your car works?

"Firewrx234" (firewrx234) 08/22/2013 at 20:47 • Filed to: Jalopy Logic

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I had one of these moments today when my "Low Coolant" light turned off. I've checked and checked time and again...always has a good amount of coolant, always good engine temp. Deduced that the sensor is bad. However, when the light turns off for the first time in about a year...that's when I should be concerned because I doubt the sensor fixed itself and it's more likely that I lost the sensor and my car is now going to die in some strange, terribly Firewrx-like manner.

Is this something any of you opponauts deal with?

Buick Mackane > Firewrx234 08/22/2013 at 20:57

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You can try cleaning the electical connection first. Use some fine sandpaper and clean the copper contacts and lightly coat with No-Oxide grease before reconnecting to the bottle. Also, flush out your coolant recovery bottle of all dirt and grit, the sensor float may be sticky. You can remove the coolant recovery bottle if you want and use dishsoap and warm water and shake it around a bit and dump it out. Use the garden hose to flush out any remaining soap and reinstall. This might solve your problem before you go out and buy a new sensor.

Firewrx234 > Buick Mackane 08/22/2013 at 21:00

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I'll probably work on that this weekend. Thanks for the tip, honestly it never really concerned me because I always knew the light meant nothing and it sort of gave the car more character. Silly, I know.

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > Firewrx234 08/22/2013 at 21:39

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Surprisingly, no... For an italian car, mine is relatively safe when it comes to fiery death or electrical gremlins. Had a blown fuse the other day, a bad light bulb a month ago, but that's pretty much it.

It does, however, self destruct within moments of a gauge or warning light pointing out any problems, so theres that.

Firewrx234 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 08/22/2013 at 21:42

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That reminds me of one of the scenes from Futurama:

Ship's Computer (while beeping): Warning, out of dark matter fuel.

Leela : That's not a warning. A warning is supposed to come before something bad happens.

Ship's Computer (with a more stern alarm): Warning, engines will shut down in one second.

Leela : That's more like it.

[The ship's engines die and it abruptly comes to a stop, throwing the three crew members out of their chairs. The ship drifts into a shady looking area of space.]

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > Firewrx234 08/22/2013 at 21:55

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Yep, totally familiar. Something like that happened to me no more than two months ago... Brake fluid warning light came on around 7:30 pm one night, clutch actuactor was deader than dead no more than 12 hours later. So, 12 hours is the time it took to go from a small puncture that leaked brake fluid to this:

And no clutch means no moving, so dragging my car's ass back home was another pain altogether.

Firewrx234 > BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion 08/22/2013 at 21:57

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That seems...fun...

BlazinAce - Doctor of Internal Combustion > Firewrx234 08/22/2013 at 22:21

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Yeah, well that was supposed to be one single part, and that's how I pulled it off the engine bay. It wasn't a hard fix, but that particular part for this particular car isn't really easy to find in Brazil and I seriously feared my car was done for...

Pure87 > Firewrx234 08/23/2013 at 02:56

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It is possible that the sensor fixed itself after shifting around or something. I had an ABS sensor go bad a while back (which threw 3 annoying lights on the dash) and even after replacing both front sensors, the lights stayed on. Months later, I hopped in the car one night and noticed the cabin was a little darker than normal and the lights were just gone.