Well the warranty covered the replacement of the water pump. So I figured why not. Had that put in. Got my car Friday. Didn't go anywhere yesterday. Driving home today, temperature spiked about a block from home. I turned on the defroster and it dropped as I coasted in. Overflow tank was bubbling, I'm getting no hot air out of the heater vents and white smoke is coming out of the tail pipe. It is kind of rainy here right now, but everything I'm looking at points straight to the blown head gasket, which is what I and everyone else here pegged originally. But that mechanic swore up and down it wasn't.

 

My guess is the bubbling you are noticing is compression gases, the heat spike is related to an air pocket (as if it was that hot, you'd have no problem feeling warm air from the vents) and the white smoke is pretty much your final clue to the head gasket.

If you drive on it too long, the over compression of the cooling system will eventually damage something else in the process. When you have the work done, make sure the LIM gasket is replaced with the FelPro metal core gasket (it is superior to the original nylon).

 

Sorry to keep asking so many questions, but a friend came over to look at it and took it around the block for about 10 minutes. The temperature gauge ran hot and we brought it back. There was bubbling in the coolant, which we believe is why there's no heat. It's not actually getting that hot, as you said. Just the air pockets causing it. But there was no white smoke this whole time. Would white smoke be a constant for something like this? Or would it come and go? My friend suggested the radiator is clogged and needs to be flushed and said it was blowing out white smoke at the time because it was raining.

Also, I've noticed every time I drive it and when I turn it off, I hear a dripping sound from under the hood. When I look in the overflow, there's a single bubble popping up, like there's a drip somewhere in the system.

 

its the head gaskets.

you have had a few people tell you what it is now. as rude as this sounds, stop wasting money on the other stuff and fix the right thing.

there should be ZERO bubbles, even when the coolant is low, it will not bubble unless its boiled over and coolant does not boil very easily at all. if you have gotten to that point of it boiling, you may just want to consider a new engine.

when you finally decide to fix the right part, have the heads decked at a local machine shop, they are most likely warped from all of the misdiagnosing you and the mechanics have done and all the extra driving around when you shouldnt have been.

 

Even if you have an air pocket working out of the system, you will never notice large scale "bubbling" in the overflow bottle. That is a result of an over pressurized cooling system releasing pressure anywhere it can. Not to mention, air pockets normally are easily bled off. If you keep having air pockets, it starts to beg the question "where are they coming from".
Even if you had a simple coolant leak, the loss of coolant should not allow the system to have enough pressure to make the overflow bottle bubble like you describe.
The white smoke may not be constant, depends on how bad the head gasket issue can be at this time. What happens is when you turn the car off, the pressure in the cooling system escapes through the weakest points. When it does this, it will sometimes force coolant back into the cylinders. At that point the white smoke will probably only be seen when you first start the car for a few seconds (during which time the car will probably feel a little "rough" when you rev it).

As for the dripping sound, that could be anything at this point. Pending the diagnosis here is right and it is a blown head gasket, keep in mind, the more you drive it the more you are at risk of blowing something out in the cooling system (which adds cost to the repair).

The white smoke and the no heat when the temp gauge is running hot are some tell tale signs. Keep in mind, if this was a simple air pocket, while you are driving, the water pump is working more (pushing more fluid around) and even if you had a small air pocket, it should not take long for the t-stat to open, the air pocket to move along and you to have blazing heat again. But if you are getting large amounts of compression gases, this will present more of an issue with no heat with a high temp gauge.

If you are not sure if it's a head gasket vs an air pocket, I suggest you try to bleed the air out. You should not have to constantly bleed air out of the system. You could also do a compression check on each cylinder.

Or, find a trusted mechanic. Don't tell the mechanic you think it's a head gasket, give him all the symptoms and let him diagnose from there.

But I highly recommend you get to the repair phase before this creates a bigger problem.

 

Welcome to the club. My 2201 Monte SS has been a lemon since I bought it new in 2002. A few months of driving and the intake manifold seal had to be replaced. Good it was still in warranty. Next one in 2008, elbows leaked and were replaced. 2011: Last straw, my husband drained out the dex Cool Coolant (notorious for causing seal fails) and cleaned out everything under the hood, replaced every seal and some new bolts, and used the new aluminum elbows to replace the plastic ones. We thought this would do it. Last week, here we go again. Its in my garage with the hood up. Can't wait to get into it tonight to see what happened now.