06 Tacoma overheating

Hi I have an 06 base model Tacoma. It has 280k and has been over heating recently. It sucks up the water in the reservoir tank but seems like that goes before the water in the radiator does. Is that normal? The alternator is about a month old. Any pointers on what I should do? Thank you

 

Water in the alternator?

 

wut

 

Since I'm pretty sure you don't have a water-cooled alternator, I'll assume you were auto-corrected from 'Radiator'. Have you verified the level in the radiator by removing the cap and inspecting visually?

 

Did you mean the radiator is a month old?

 

meant radiator

 

You could possibly have air in the system blocking flow. There's vids on YouTube how to burp the air out. It's a fairly easy procedure. I always start with the cheapest fix and go from there.

 

This morning I filled both radiator and reservoir. An hour later the engine was overheating so I added water to the reservoir but the alternator had lost very little water compared to the reservoir.

 

When the radiator was replaced, did you do the work, or was it done by a reliable shop? If you did the work, how did you bleed the system?

 

You have to use a quality 50/50 antifreeze. Toyota long life or an equivalent. If you keep adding just water, it will have to be flushed out and refilled.

 

You guys are going to make me be the one to say it

“Have you checked the head gasket”

It’s possible you have a bad water pump or radiator. That not common on the 4.0. But with 280k who knows?

 

The system is supposed to pull coolant from the reservoir as needed, so it's good that the system is doing so. When doing the coolant service on my 2006 2.7 (done it twice so far), it only needs a few heat cycles to purge air from the system and pull in a bit more coolant to top off the system automatically. Not sure what is happening with yours. There are test kits out there to tell you if there is exhaust compounds in the coolant, indicating a blown head gasket. Also I agree with the comment about using the proper coolant, some people swear by the Toyota brand stuff. IMO it doesn't have to be Toyota brand but it has to be the right formulation (pink or red HOAT), some brands call it "Asian coolant." Maybe it will get better if you stop calling the radiator an alternator? LOL

 

Like others have mentioned/asked, how did you bleed the system? You may have an air block somewhere causing you to overheat.