Hello all. OK I will try to explain the best I can. The check engine light comes on sometimes. I took it to autozone and it says it is the thermostat. Today while driving to work the temp needle started going up and almost got to the red. i got on the freeway and the temp went down to normal. got off and slowly started creeping up again. got to the red and I pulled into gas station and wait. about 30 minutes later i started the car temp back to normal and started creeping up again. drove home and had to pull over again after almost getting to red. I do hear pressure coming from the radiator when i pull over but no smoke or anything at all. This part is weird....I do here like clicking noises coming from what seems under the dashboard. What can it be? I did buy a thermostat and i am going to change it out in a bit. Hopefully that is all it is. Any ideas would be great.
There is no leaking of antifreeze the reservoir shows antifreeze in it and no smoke or anything. does my srt8 have two or one fans in the front? thx
Your SRT has two fans. Each fan only operates at one speed (on/off) but one of the two fans comes on for "low" cooling and the second comes on when "high" is needed. The service manual doesn't break down the criteria for the individual fans but does state the radiator fan will always be on when the A/C compressor clutch is engaged (which I believe is the low speed fan) and the second fan will also come on when coolant temp reaches 207°F and turns off when coolant temp drops back down to 201°F and will also be shut off when the car reaches ~62 mph (which I believe is the high speed fan). You can determine if your thermostat is the problem by checking the lower radiator hose's temperature (or upper if that’s the output of the thermostat). If it is still cold when the car starts to overheat, you probably have an issue with the thermostat. If your thermostat checks out, take a look at your fan. Pop the hood and run your engine. At some point, the fan should kick on. If it doesn’t, you either have an electrical problem with the fan or a busted fan. For more extensive troubleshooting I'd get a copy of the wiring diagram (found in the factory service manual) so you can trace the wires and first run jumper wires from the battery to test that the fan motors are working. Then you could jumper the relays manually and run continuity tests from the connectors at the computer to the relays and so on. The simple list of things it could be is the control relays, something in the wiring harness/grounds, the fan motors, or a damaged computer (probably in that order).
Assuming Autozone read a P0128 this may or may not be the result of a bad thermostat (though most common code trigger). See attachment: https://www.fixdapp.com/blog/p0128-dodge/
