Today my grandfather and I were doing some work on my old cat. We changed a 2 inch hose that's a part of the cooling system. It looked like it was about to blow up. We solved the car's leaking coolant problem as well, it was another hose. I'm guessing we did something wrong and I suspect it's because when we removed the hose (we had to remove some other part near the thermostat as well) some coolant fluid drained out and might have gotten a few other parts wet. (We should have flushed it beforehand)

As I said, leak gone, and everything is in working order. The engine doesn't overheat and it drives almost perfectly. I say almost because now I've got two new problems that are probably related. I get a restricted warning message (amber yellow color) and my temperature gauge is not rising at all.

Could it be that we screwed up the thermostat? Could it just be that I just need to wait for the 1,2-Ethanediol needs to dry up? Should I be worried?

 

Check the connection on the temp switch they do break and a bad connection will give you the light, if you have a code reader this will show it up

 

That short hose does look scary all puffed up and all.......

 

Where is the temperature switch? You're telling me that that's all that it takes for the restricted performance message to pop up? I just find it so strange that it happened just after we finished the work on the car. I don't have a code reader. :/

 

You did not mention refilling the cooling system, did you?

 

I did refill the cooling system. That was the first thing I did before starting the car!

 

It's the grey connector going onto the black plastic pipe at the front of the engine, the top radiator hose goes to it

 

Oh ok ok, I know what it is now. Well I'll check it tomorrow, it is dark out now...

Oh, I almost forgot, when I start the car, the A/C shows "Er." for a couple of seconds with 3 or 4 bleep sounds. Then it stops. My A/C works normally otherwise and it does cool the car. Should I check if it heats as well? The heater is not something I use in a tropical island.

 

When you work on the cooling system and refill it, you should turn the heat all the way up initially to make sure there is not an air pocket. Since you have not used the heater, the core could be plugged or the pump not working, in which case there will be no heat. That will require additional communication with the forum, but let's hope that the heater does work.

 

All of your symptoms (Restricted Perf., Temp. Gauge does not rise, climate fault) point to an unplugged or damaged temperature sensor.

 

If you have a laptop PC get yourself an 'ELM327' USB code reader off of ebay for about $15. It will read and reset basic engine fault codes. It will be a very useful tool for very little money.

 

Ok, well, I'm hoping it's the temperature sensor, it seems like an inexpensive part. I've found it online for about $20 give or take. I'll check it out in the morning.

 

They rarely fail, so I am betting that the connector is not fully seated or a wire got damaged since you were just working in that area.

 

Sigh. This is starting to scare me. I didn't remove the damn thing when working in that area. My grandpa explicitly told me not to. Now I feel like I might have been a little careless about it. It seemed inoffensive enough to me.

I didn't see any wires when working with the temperature sensor and the sensor is held in place by some kind of bolt. Should I just remove it and reinstall it? What if it got wet?

Besides the current symptoms I'm having, what damage can that temperature sensor cause?

 

Don't get worried, it is probably is nothing serious, but it does need to be resolved.

As XKRacer said the temp. sensor has a grey plastic connector at the top front of the engine, The connector for the temp sensor has a plastic tab that you just squeeze and pull with your fingers to remove. You will see the 2 wires when you look at it. There is absolutely no need to unbolt it from the engine unless you end up replacing it.

If it is wet, remove the connector, dry it off and plug it back in.

If you are not sure take some pictures with your phone and post them up here tomorrow.

 

Sounds easy enough. Thanks. I'll get to that tomorrow.

 

Problem solved! Apparently my grandpa inadvertently disconnected the temperature sensor and forgot to tell me about it. When it came time to put everything back in its place I didn't see the sensor disconnected, the wire was well hidden.

Reconnected it and all of the symptoms disappeared. As if by magic!

I also blasted the heater and it worked flawlessly. I'm glad today is a rainy day because it almost reached 1000 ēC in there.

 

Nice work! Glad you are back on the road.

 

Thanks! I feel like a retard for not having noticed that before. Haha. I'm glad this was an inexpensive repair. Only $8 were spent!

 

Congrats! I feel like a retard after almost every job I do that takes 3X longer than it should, (which is all of them) so don't feel bad. Love your island, my son's wedding was there and we returned several times. Only wish some residents had more pride in the beauty all around them and not trash up the place so much.