Car dies when coolant light goes out.
 

This is really odd. When the car is on the coolant light comes on almost immediately. I have replaced the sensor, but it didn't help.

The thing is I don't really care about the coolant light coming on cuz' I know my level is fine.

Here is the kicker just two weeks ago the coolant light
turned off while I was driving on the highway. I got so excited because I thought it miraculously fixed itself. NOT!!

Instead I started losing ALL power. First headlights and dash and then slowly the clock started to fade. I dropped it into 2nd and kept the RPM's as high as I could in order to generate enough juice to fire the spark plugs and make it home. I haven't been able to drive my car since. It keeps dying with the same coolant light on then off deal.

Any ideas?

Something is shorting out.

Does this mean I have to go through every wire in every harness?

Dude, when the coolant light comes on, that means add coolant, not change the sensor. The coolant level can get low for several different reasons, even if you think it isn't.

Well, anyway, you don't have to go through every wire in the harness. Its more than likely that a shorted wire is on an exposed part of the harness, like under the hood, or somewhere behind the dash where maintenance has taken place.

check the about 3' of single wire run for the coolant level sensor- it runs down the right side of the radiator right next to all the sharp edges of the secondary frame structure, then meets the harness near the frame rail. move it around & look for any chafed areas that might be causing your short

BTW< the coolant light is going out right before the car starts dying 'cause the wire found its ground (not the RIGHT ground, though)

Sounds like a short or bad alternator/battery.

Thanks everyone for the help. I especially like the idea about the wire from the coolant sensor touching at some point while driving and that causing everything to go wrong. I wouldn't have thought that just one wire from the coolant sensor could do that. Oh well time to start checking that wire......

WEll... dont know if this'll help or not.


My coolant light would stay on, no matter what. Bled all the air out of the radiator, fresh coolant 50/50 mix with distilled water, new radiator cap, the works.

Well.. the few times that it would come off... my radio would cut off.

I KNEW my radiator was fine, my hoses were NEW, i had coolant (I checked EVERYDAY just in case) so I decided to cut the wire that went to sensor.... add 2 ft to it, and just hook it up directly to the negative battery terminal until I can re-do some of the wiring from the ECU (my shit is VERY dried out and crackly, it needs replaced ASAP)

Well... in doing that it fixed my problem. I WOULD have just grounded it to the frame, but that didnt fix the problem either. I need to do some grounding work bad.

Good luck man,

Jon