Overheating 1998 prelude, fans dont always kick on....whats wrong with it?

WHAT SOLENOID ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.
OR DID YOU MEAN ELECTRIC RELAYS.
THE ENGINE IS OVERHEATING.
RIGHT?

WRONG FAN USED
WRONG RELAY USED, OR BOTH, OMG BOTH.
FANS CAN FAIL SPIN AND DRAW WAY TO MUCH CURRENT.
TIS A FACT.

You have the right idea. The sensor could either be bad or you may have a blown fuse or disconnected wire. The sensor for the fan is located either in your thermostat housing, the radiator or in the head somewhere. Another possibility is low water level. Be certain to always check your water level in your radiator because without water for a sensor to read the temperature, it will not turn on and you may end up ruining your engine by extreme overheating.

Alway worry about the head gasket. Run it if you fell water running threw the lines(check all of them)it may not be the pump. Check water levels. If you fell water running and dont see water on the ground check to see if the fan is kicking on. You may just have to do a heavy flush. Now it if the temp is running cooler but still hot you have to replace the thermostat again the wax after it over heats breaks down. If its still running hot there go to your parts store and rent a code meter. It helps some times Good luck

• flush radiator
• Check if fan kicks in
• Remove cap and see if coolant circulates while the engine is running
• Get it pressure tested
  

Yes we had a Saturn which we thought was running hot and the gauge was always in the centre or over but we had the fan checked and it was working. Our thermostat might of been faulty but we never had a overheating issue..My Mechanic said that we should get a coolant flush that might help.

People remove the t-stat because of overheating, (it sticks closed) this is a temp fix, you probibly have an air lock in the cooling system. sometimes it can take 30 minuntes to work out, make sure the cooling fans kick on.

First are you sure the fans are good. Unplug the fans and hook directly to the battery and see if they turn. One fan is for the engine and should come on when the car gets hot. The other generally comes on when the a/c system is on. If both fans work hooked directly to the battery they are good go to the cooling fan switch or temperature switch (same thing different name) and make sure it is good. This tells the fan to kick on when the car gets hot. The other one kicks on when a switch on the a/c system tells it to kick on. Check and make sure you are getting power to the fans. Get a test light and ground it to a good ground on the car and probe the plugins going to the fans and insure there is power coming to them when the car is running. If no power fuse is bad or the sending unit is bad.

cOOLING fAN tURNS ON @ 210-230 dEG. tEMP sENSOR bAD & OR fAN relay cAN cAUSE THIS pROBLEM

hello, have you ran a scan tool on it yet to see if its not your coolant temp sensor or other temp sensor if you don't own one you can have any place like auto zone run one for you for free you'll have more of a idea of whats wrong even if your cooling fan is at fault it'll let you know. when your chevy is at idol if the cooling fan is'nt kicking on then that's a good starting point,also check to make sure your anti freeze is'nt low and easy but over looked problem and your anti freeze cap could be bad and wont force the right amount to pressure through the cooling system also make sure you dont have air in your system when you changed the thermostat did you bleed the system through the bleeder valve mounted on the coolint system.and make sure your drive belt has proper tension even though you replaced the pump the drive belt has to be in good condition it drives the pump.also check your cooling fan fuse and the relay for it.

This is actually a commen problem. All I can tell you that there is trick with pressing the A/C button while leaving the blower fan off. That will usually kick the fan in. What I find is that when you have a car that is overheating, and this is especially with GM cars, the best thing to do is to try to cruise at a constant speed, while avoiding heavy traffic, allowing the motor to breath cooler air which will stop the temps from rising any further. Most GM motors are built to handle the abuse of an overheating engine.
This suggestion is a possible solution to this simiiar problem which I had. This solution won't be any good for someone with a seriously overheating problem. If your temps shoot up high after only driving a short distance, parts or supplies will need to be bought.