2017 tacoma OVERHEAT!

Yesterday we were sitting at the drive through in about 85* weather. My AC was blowing very humid air and when the compressor kicked in, my car slightly wanted to lunge forward and made a rattling sound.

Today after I pumped gas and wanted to drive away I had no throttle. Looked at my cluster and the truck was OVERHEATING. LUCKILY I was a minute away from the dealer that services my truck.

Tacoma is now at the dealer! Let’s see what happens.

 

Maybe you had a stuck thermostat or something simple.

 

In for results.

Any chance you've been offroad and gummed up the condensor/radiator?

 

I’m hoping it’s something simple. Like the thermostat

I have done just a little off-roading. I did everything to clean up the bay and body hours after the mud

 

That'll do it.

 

Including blasting the front of the radiator/condenser/trans cooler (if equipped)?

Well, keep us posted.

At least we know you get it dirty.

 

fucking love it.

Last time mine got this muddy I had the same problem although mine didn't really overheat, from years of owning shitty beater cars I'm trained to watch my temp gauge like a hawk so I saw it right as it barely moved over operating temp and I pulled over to check it out. My radiator and trans cooler were just CAKED in mud, a good power wash and my truck was fine. But also had a friend with a 3rd gen and we think he shoved something into the fan that dislodged as he had a gash in a fan blade and the fan clutch was burnt out which also caused him to start overheating in traffic until we got up to speed.

Hope yours is a quick fix as well!

 

Stuck thermostat makes total sense but curious, have you ever seen one fail closed??

I know by design they're supposed to fail OPEN so that you just don't warm up (instead of overheat). Maybe I'm just lucky but out of all the failed thermostats I've ever encountered they all failed in the open position. And overheating was something else like bad fan relay, fan clutch, water pump etc... But could just be my own limited experience I think I've only ever seen 3 bad thermostats total.

 

My Ex-GFs Son bought an Aztek and it failed closed and naturally the head gaskets also failed. But that thing used that Dex-Cool shit and the head gaskets probably had already failed prior to the thermostat getting stuck. I was test driving it after fixing everything and then the brake pedal went to the floor, several hard lines had corroded and had holes in them so I ended up replacing those too, car was a major piece of crap and difficult to work on!

 

I did get every last bit of mud off with the steamer.

Waiting to hear back from them

 

aaahhh dex-cool that brings up some memories. Helped a friend rebuild his entire cooling system in his E36 BMW that used very similar coolant... he didn't know that and put in the regular old green coolant which gummed up his entire system. Turned his coolant into this clumpy molasses like crap

 

Did you notice if the fan was working properly?? My first guess is now bad fan clutch. Keep us posted OP now I HAVE to know

 

I would never buy a vehicle that uses that crap, seems like everything it was in develops intake and head gasket issues and turns nasty.

 

Does anyone have any service writer friends at Toyota dealers near La?

 

Did they happen to say what they found?

 

They found mud lol

In Between the fins of the radiator. The side facing the street not visible unless taken apart

 

So did they tell you to piss up a rope OP?

Need the juicy details don't leave us hanging

 

Gummed up fins? That was it???

 

And post #3 is the winner.

Next up, lessons in post mudding cleaning.

Glad it wasn't a mechanical flaw...........