I need help!!!! My 05 3.4 liter monte carlo is running hot, have replaced the thermostat helped for a few weeks, replaced water pump helped for 1 week, replaced hoses, belt and radiator now running hot pretty consistantly. Bled the air. Has white steam coming out of tailpipe occasionally. Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Tried checking the hoses after running for 30 seconds and not a lot of pressure there. Hot coolant light comes on after it gets so hot. Never ran her hot enough for steam etc...

 

Have you checked for oil leaking at the gaskets inbetween the manifolds and inbetween the manifold and the heads?

The 3.4 is notorious for blowing the LIM gasket.

How is the oil? Does is look milky, or just not look right?

 

After you bleed, and it gets hot again, can you bleed it again? and again?

Air could be getting into the system. Poor radiator cap, headgasket...

 

Oil looks good, just had it changed and asked them to specifically look at it and they said it showed no signs of problems. also had them change the spark plugs and wires and they said didn't appear to be any problems there.

Yes it bled several times, last time I checked it after we replaced the radiator cap for the second time no air that time and ran warm but not hot, when I closed it back it broke off. When my wife went to go to work the next morning ran hot and she came back home....

 

You sound like a head gasket (similiar situation as what happened with my 3100 Grand Am, which is almost the same motor as the 3400).

Get a hold of a radiator pressure tester, pump it up and do a leak check. If you can't find a leak, you are suspect to a head gasket because:
- 1 - You should not be getting "steam" or clouds of white smoke out the exhaust (when my 3100 head gasket blew, once in a while I got clouds only for a few seconds until the coolant in the cylinder blew out).
- 2 - I can understand bleeding the system up to 3 times tops. After that, you need to ask "where is this air coming from". If you can't find a leak, then it's NOT leaving the engine. When my Grand Am began running hot, I would actually pull over, pop the bleed screw and steam came out followed by coolant (but my temp went down instantly).
If the head gasket is bad, what is going on is the compression gases are entering the coolant system (which is bad, one big reason is it's over pressurizing the system, in my case, by the time this mess was figured out, it also caused my radiator to blow the gasket on the side tank). It will damage the cooling system starting at the weakest part. Now, when the car is not running and cooling down, compression gases are reduced and one of the places for the coolant to go is through the head gasket into the cylinders. If it sits over night or for many hours (like an 8hr work day) you might notice that's when clouds of white smoke come out the exhaust. You may also notice the engine idling "rough" for the first few seconds. That's all related to the problem.

Now you may ask "why if I do a pressure test am I not loosing pressure for a blown head gasket". Easy, you are not grossly exceeding the amount of pressure the cooling system can handle AND you are not putting in enough pressure to exploit the current head gasket problem.

If you are lucky like I was, my engine never "really" was running as hot as the gauge said. This happened at 180,000 miles for me, and I am still driving the car as a daily driver at almost 220,000 miles.

 

Your description sounds just like our girl!!! THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR advice....this gives us a good idea of what we are looking at now.
Will probably tackle this problem myself, if anyone has any additional advise it's VERY MUCH appreciated...THANKS TO ALL!!!

 

I have an 04 ss Supercharged n my oil gauge temp is always half way. Every time i accelerate it fills up about 3/4s the way. I changed the oil and reset it thru the stereo. Any ideas why oil level is that high?

 

these engines are really hot inside, a colder thermostat will help, but an oil cooler is not a bad idea, heat is what breaks the friction modifiers in the oil down the fastest, the cooler you keep your oil the longer it can protect your engine (just dont do an ice or CO2 setup, that would be too cold)

 

Thanks for the info! So what temp thermostat would u suggest? And may sound stupid but how do i go about installing it?

 

Why are you posting this in this thread?

That is NOT an oil temperature gauge, it's an oil PRESSURE gauge.

And it sounds like it is functioning 100%