I am not really a very proud owner of a 2000 Buick Century Custom 3.1L right now. Let me explain it to you because I want to keep my car. Ok so it all started about 2 months ago now. My car sprung probably the biggest coolant leak because of a couple of pretty big cracks in my radiator. So I let it go until I get paid so I can get it done. I get paid, get the radiator, put it in, attached the lines attached the fans, attached the transmission lines, attached the hoses and the sensor on the side of the radiator just beneath the slanted downspout where I pour coolant into the radiator... Car is still overheating after... So I get a thermostat and install it. Still overheating after... Coolant coming out of the throttle body. Hissing sound, from directly in front of the back wall of the engine bay. Could this be due to a faulty installation? The water is boiling within a few minutes and I will shut it down, and then try something else. I bled the coolant system. But still getting the water boiling... Funniest sh75t in the world is that when the temp light comes on earlier today, I put my hand on the intake manifold and it was warm like warm water but nowhere near as hot as my upper hose. No smoke at all from the front or the back of the car or from the tailpipe. My exhaust system has separated from the engine itself and by coming out of the bracket that clamps the tailpipe to the side of the car..


Please let me know what to do about this. I know that it seems like I'm crazy over my car but it'* not really me. I was naive. I thought it was an event that would be fixed in the installation of the new radiator,



The temp light will be another issue. Would I ever get a false positive from the temp guage? The coolant light that has been on for 7 weeks. The low coolant light is on.

How many miles was this happening?

What region do you live in?

Where were the cracks in the radiator, or more importantly, how high on the radiator from bottom to top?

Sounds like a blown head gasket to me.

faulty installation . . . of the radiator? Probably not.

This also sounds like a blown head gasket.

You say "water", do you mean "coolant"? The difference here tells us what temperature it is getting to in order to boil.

Also sounds like a blown head gasket.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Test compression on all cylinders, then maybe use a head gasket test kit to confirm a blown head gasket.

If the coolant is low, it will probably run hot. The temperature light should come on when the coolant is too hot, but if the coolant is so low that coolant doesn't touch the sensor for the light, then the light might not come on when the coolant is too hot.

Moved thread from Pontiac Bonneville > 2000-2005 to Buick .

How did you get the air out of the system? We've found that we needed to lift the front end until the rear bumper cover is about touching the floor. Best if you don;t have a lift is to use a vacuum type bleeder.