I have been having cooling issues lately. one day I was on a very unspirited short drive. not a hot day. and I stopped for a min. tried starting the car and didn't turn over right away. got around the corner and water temp needle hits white and is buzzing i.e- it always does. I pull over coast to a stop and opened hood and let cool. since then I haven't driven it since, but I started inspecting the problem. It starts up and warms up fine but after about 5 mins the gauge starts to rise and I shut it off. I live in Colorado and it is very cool here so I put a high speed fan right in front of the nose and have the hood up fans on -a/c turned on. still get the temp needle creeping. there are no signs of coolant seal failure. no smoke, no spilling coolant, the intake pipes are cool to touch. can't figure it out. I started a thread and everyone says thermostat. I highly agree but then I removed the battery and tray and found that driver side fan is not working. tried to move it with my hand and it is scrapping against the rad. and wont move freely. very interesting? I wonder why? I do have reciepts that a new aftermarket two row rad was installed on 07-03 about 3 mos before I bought it. I am on the stock temp gauge and stock ast. which are both on the way. does anybody have any idea?

 

Even with one fan, the car should not overheat.

Since everyone says thermostat, why don't you listen to them, and replace it???

 

maybe the fan motor is seized? when i bought my fd, the guy who sold it to me told me that the driver's fan motor was seized and included a new fan motor with the car..goodfellafd3s helped me in taking out the whole fan assembly and putting the new motor on it. the car didn't really overheat before but now i have a better peace of mind knowing that both fans are working.

 

My other car used to scrap like that and I just trimmed the fan blades a bit and it worked again just as good~~~ you can try that... and it won't hurt performance!!!...duh...

 

I am waiting to take the car in. I live 100 miles away from the only shop that can do it right. otherwise Mazda wants 400$ to flush the cooling system and replace the thermostat. I haven't worked on this car but only minor stuff. I am a stereo guy not a mechanic. I just want to find out if anybody has had any of these problems. so I can get straight to the problem. thanks.

 

I have a fan and motor for sale. Let me know if you want them. They came off a car w/ 60K miles

 

Sounds like your thermostat is stuck, it is not letting the coolant circulate through the pipes (cool to the touch). the fans can run all they want but it is not going to help because the thermostat is stuck closed.

Replace it yourself it cant be that big of a deal, if not, take it to midas, and watch the mechanic work on your car the whole time to make sure he does it right. and you are good to go.

 

my car was getting damn near overheating this summer when one of my fans went out. i took it to my local dealer (i know, but you don't know this dealer, the service manager was a mechanic on the 3rd gens when they came out and knows what he is doing... has hooked me up cost wise too ). they took it apart, cleaned everything up, and packed it with di-electric (spelling?) grease, seems it had a bit of corrosion in it that was making it work intermittantly, at best.

 

did it fix the problem? did you have the same symptoms? I guess I am just looking for a piece of mind until I take it in.

 

well I figured out why temp gauge and most of problems were happening. air bubbles in cooling system. temp gauge finally stopped at normal ( a little lower than half on the pos stock water temp gauge and buzzer even went off. went for a drive. runs great. no overheating. still have one burnt fan, already bought some new fans and got a new alum ast. have not installed yet. trying to find out. procedure for replacing ast. seems simple. just don't want to have to drain coolant. ?. anyway burbing is some serious ****. got to do it first if you ever have this prob. peace.