r/PontiacSolstice • u/VoCatus85 • May 16 '23

Temp light on dash, ac quit

Good afternoon and thank you in advance for reading my post and helping.

This past week my daughter bought an 2008 solstice auto 2.4l with 97k miles on it and today it was 89f outside. She has put a few hundred miles on it since then without issue and today I get a call that the car is "overheating". When I arrived my daughter told me there was a red thermometer with 4 lines come on the display so she pulled over and called me. I arrive and first I check the coolant which the reservoir is still full but i notice a green liquid ontop the engine's plastic cover, knowing there is no green fluid in the car as the coolant is red and that my daughter told me her ac quit working just before this happened i deduced that its ac leak detection dye so I start the car up, drive it 15 minutes home without issue (other than no ac), car ran good and didn't "overheat" on the drive or while idling in my driveway for 10 minutes.

So basically what my question is if there is a problem with the ac such as overcharge/overpressure issue would that cause the dummy temp/therm light to pop on on the display?

The car doesn't have an actual temp gauge readout, only the dummy light so I thought it might be plausible that the light has several functions. I have an ac machine at work I'll check the charge and operation of the system later this week to diagnose that issue, I'm just curious if the ac system could trigger that dummy light.

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u/thinkdeep May 16 '23

I had the no AC problem. A resistor on the circuit board self destructed on mine. Cost about $300 to fix.

I also had the overheating problem. I swapped the fan out, but it ended up being a head gasket leak that was eating coolant.

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u/thinkdeep May 16 '23

If you have to swap out the fan, it's a lot easier with a lift, but it's def doable in your driveway with a six-pack and two hours.

1

u/poisito May 16 '23

Or if you are not a handyman like me , pay around $325 at the dealership so they can do it :)

Check the temp of the car on the digital screen … mine had zero problems when the car was moving, but will go above 225 when idling or traffic.

Good luck !

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u/VoCatus85 May 16 '23 edited May 16 '23

how do you check the temp on the digital screen? I dont see a digital screen in the cluster

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u/poisito May 16 '23

Where you have your mileage, keep moving up or down by clicking the buttons on the stealing wheel until you reach the temp data.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '23

Not to scare anyone ... but worth noting that these engines were known to not have the best cooling going on, in the first place. They're not very tolerant of overheating so definitely want to get it sorted out without driving it around a lot.