Recently my car has been overheating a lot--it has coolant in it, oil and the fan is working but it still over heats. The weird thing about it is it'll over heat and get all the way to the red line (I found this out because I had no place to pull over to let it cool off) but then it cools itself off and goes back to the normal spot, but shortly after it'll heat up again...i don't know if it repeats this process because I found a place to pull over so I wouldn't end up with engine damage.

Any suggestions on what it could be?

 

First off what kinda car is it? As you can't always depend on those gauges. When you say over heat does it bubble out of the overflow bottle?? Or show any other sign besides the gauge going in the red. Is it leaking water out of any where or running weird? feel free to call as it may be a little easier to diagnose.

 

try checking your thermostat...it might be stuck....this would definetly cause it to overheat....what is the condition of your radiator? any leaks

 

The car is a 96 thunderbird lx...the radiator is fine-I'm pretty sure I have a leak somewhere between the overflow tank and where I put the fluid in at, but that's a simple fix--I constantly check my fluids before I go anywhere just to make sure I'm not low or whatever.

I know it is actually overheating because yesterday on my way to school I pulled over and some creepy trucker guy stopped to help me and he took the metal cap off of the radiator and it was very. very. hot (which, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to take the cap off while the car is hot, right?)

So, if the thermostat is off, that could cause the overheating?

 

when your engine gets too hot (temp gauge on the cluster) the thermostat will kick in and reduce the temp....a new thermostat at advance auto is pretty cheap and can be done by yourself (usually 3 bolts will remove the housing where the thermostat sits and it will pop out)...this might be an easy inexpensive way to start out diagonosing the problem

 

awesome, thanks for the tip

 

Yea there about $ 4.00-7.00 for a new one.

 

Yup I would lean towards a thermostat first then go from there and like he said ^^ its a cheap start.

 

Have you poured any type of radiator fix in it??

 

Sounds like your thermostat is fux0red.