car overheating?

[johnshop]

so i just came back from a favor i had to do (maybe 4 miles total? ) to find out that when i came back there was smoke coming out of the front of the car, i open the hood and i hear the radiator bubbling for a little after the car was shut off and then it stopped. weird thing is that in the dashboard the temp shows normal... why is that? do i have a faulty sensor?
the car it's been in the driveway for a couple of days after a "long" drive ( 90 miles) could that have to do with anything?

edit: i opened the radiator and it has brown stuff in it, i will do a flush tomorrow, could that also be? maybe change the radiator cap too?

[t.mcginley.jr]

Could be a number of things...

I would suggest flushing the radiator, filling it up completely and then get the car up to operating temp. If there is a continuous stream of bubbles and/or the coolant gets an oily film it could be a bad head gasket. I'm assuming you already checked for leaks?

There's a list of other things that could be the problem, but it could just be that there wasn't enough coolant in the radiator. Fill up the overflow bottle too

[johnshop]

I wouldn't think is a head gasket because I had all upper gaskets replaced a month ago. And I don't see any leaks. But the smoke is what has me a little more worried.

[t.mcginley.jr]

How old is the radiator itself?

[johnshop]

Good question. I have no idea lol.

Now today I had to drive the car so I decided to just fill with water since I couldn't get my hands on coolant. The radiator did not bubbled nor smoked or anything and it was a longer trip than when it happened.

Still tomorrow I will get coolant and do a complete flush of the system and see what happens. I can tell that it has maybe never been flushed so that might just help.

[t.mcginley.jr]

Yeah it could just be that the radiator is old. Flush it good, refill with 50/50 and see what happens. and post updates!

[johnshop]

Will do!