My girlfriend has a 2003 Pontiac Grand Am with the GM 3400 V6, about 130k miles on it. When her parents bought it somewhere around 120k miles a year ago from a used car lot it was in decent shape, a bit of rust from living up north all its life, the valve covers leak a small bit of oil, and the coolant was disgusting and rust colored. But thanks to her parents buying it for her before we even got up there to see what kind of car is was and so I could look it over she was more or less stuck with it. So I demanded we get the coolant flushed and changed for free and they did it, all was well including the 500+mile drive back home with zero issues with me checking the coolant every hour and here we are 10k miles later.
The heater apparently was only blowing warm air while at interstate speeds and the temperature gauge regularly went 3/4 the way up which she never informed me had been happening for months until "it almost reached the red for a few seconds then quickly went back down" so I open the coolant bottle to find slimy orange something coated on everything, I go to open the drain valve and it's clogged with the orange stuff that is as hard as a rock, so I have to take the lower radiator hose off and not even a gallon of coolant comes out into the drain pan. Wonderful. I go to fill it up with distilled water and coolant flush and it only can hold a little over half a gallon. Wonderful! Needless to say I flushed it four times over a coarse of an entire day of filling with flush, driving, cooling off, draining, repeat. and got it to hold a little over two gallons out of the about three gallons it's supposed to hold. The heater is working full blast again and the temp gauge stays steady so I flush with water and add coolant then hop in to head home from my friends house I was working at and the window falls in after working flawlessly it's entire life, I guess that was it telling me something was wrong because after leaving with the heater on full blast to fight the cold from a now open window the temp gauge starts to move up and down a bit and the heater gets cooler and cooler after just a mile, I immediately pull over and find some air in the system that I bleed out and all is well then just as I'm pulling in the parking spot at my apartment about ten miles later the temp gauge starts moving up and the heater goes right to cold. I open the bleed valve again and it blows out steam till it has no pressure left in the cooling system to blow any more, I open the filler since pressure is already gone and add over a gallon of coolant. And to shorten things up it was just downhill from there using coolant faster and faster over the next couple days before I told her it needs to be parked it may run healthy but it won't much longer if it keeps getting driven like this.
So I thank you for reading my story I have written and am wondering if anyone can give any suggestions as to what could of failed? The oil is spotless, the engine is just as strong as it ever was, not a single bit of coolant drips on the ground, and nothing drips out of the tail pipes. It does on occasion now have issues starting, it will jump a bit trying to start for the first couple seconds then finally start. I'm thinking the head gaskets but it seems odd that it runs so well without issue that I'm wondering more about these intake gaskets I hear so much about?
The heater apparently was only blowing warm air while at interstate speeds and the temperature gauge regularly went 3/4 the way up which she never informed me had been happening for months until "it almost reached the red for a few seconds then quickly went back down" so I open the coolant bottle to find slimy orange something coated on everything, I go to open the drain valve and it's clogged with the orange stuff that is as hard as a rock, so I have to take the lower radiator hose off and not even a gallon of coolant comes out into the drain pan. Wonderful. I go to fill it up with distilled water and coolant flush and it only can hold a little over half a gallon. Wonderful! Needless to say I flushed it four times over a coarse of an entire day of filling with flush, driving, cooling off, draining, repeat. and got it to hold a little over two gallons out of the about three gallons it's supposed to hold. The heater is working full blast again and the temp gauge stays steady so I flush with water and add coolant then hop in to head home from my friends house I was working at and the window falls in after working flawlessly it's entire life, I guess that was it telling me something was wrong because after leaving with the heater on full blast to fight the cold from a now open window the temp gauge starts to move up and down a bit and the heater gets cooler and cooler after just a mile, I immediately pull over and find some air in the system that I bleed out and all is well then just as I'm pulling in the parking spot at my apartment about ten miles later the temp gauge starts moving up and the heater goes right to cold. I open the bleed valve again and it blows out steam till it has no pressure left in the cooling system to blow any more, I open the filler since pressure is already gone and add over a gallon of coolant. And to shorten things up it was just downhill from there using coolant faster and faster over the next couple days before I told her it needs to be parked it may run healthy but it won't much longer if it keeps getting driven like this.
So I thank you for reading my story I have written and am wondering if anyone can give any suggestions as to what could of failed? The oil is spotless, the engine is just as strong as it ever was, not a single bit of coolant drips on the ground, and nothing drips out of the tail pipes. It does on occasion now have issues starting, it will jump a bit trying to start for the first couple seconds then finally start. I'm thinking the head gaskets but it seems odd that it runs so well without issue that I'm wondering more about these intake gaskets I hear so much about?
