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2003 Camry Engine Coolant temp gauge problems


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Hey
everyone I came here hoping for some advice on some issues I've been having
with my 2003 Camry. So about 3 weeks ago I notice some issues, my car has
120,000m on it so I know its still has a lot of life. But, first I notice when
I turned on the heat cool air was blowing out (Thur/Fri), then my temp gauge
started to go to the very top or overheat, the next day I had the thermostat
replaced, but the heat didn't come on until I rev my car idle to 2000rpm. A day
later I felt a vibration in my car, then the next day upon start-up my car was
violently vibrating but calmed down. I took it for a drive that night and on
the way home while driving it started vibrating violently and my engine light
started blinking. When I finally got back home and pop the hood it was smoke
coming from the engine. I took it to my mechanic the next day and he
immediately said I needed a new temperature switch because the fan wasn't
coming on when suppose to, which was causing my engine shake (The guy who put in my thermostat kind of noticed the same thing). He replaced the temp switch, I
pulled off and when I got home and restarted my car about 5min later the engine
started to shake again but not as violent and temp guage went up. I took it
back to him immediately and the code read a cylinder 2 misfire and he noticed I
was losing coolant. He kept it overnight, and added that blue devil leakage
stuff, which seemed to fix the problem. He told me to change my coolant in two
weeks, and when the second week came and I turned on my AC the temp guage went
up again! but went back down after some driving then back up again. I did my
own little coolant flush because right now money is scarce and that initial
work really spent me, from watching videos that day and after some time it
finally was back to normal. When I first did the "flush" I turned on
the heat but it was'nt hot, so I rev my car to 2000rpm and the heat in my car
became really hot as if it was working right. I drove my car around for like
20min with the heat on high for half and air on high for half and my car seemed
to stay at the normal operating temperature (the gauge was in the middle). The
next day I drove with the Air on and it was raining and the gauge read normal.
The next day I had a feeling and when I pulled into my parking lot, placed my
car in park and turned on the air my temp gauge went up, but not all the way to
H though. When I rev the car to get the heat pumping the gauge went down a
little to the upper line of the normal. I forgot to mention that prior to this
whole incident, whenever I would run my A/C while driving, when I would park
and turn my car off I would hear some gurgling or dripping for some time after
toward the passeger side of the car. I'm thinking that it could possibly be the
Radiator cap or I need to bleed the system, I really don't have any money to
take it to the shop..any suggestions what the reason could be????



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  • 4 years later...

Hi! I have a 2003 Toyota Camry with 411,000 miles on it. And I have had some of the same issues. I'll explain what I can lol. 

I had three misfires in mine at one time. I basically ran on one cylinder for a bit. Until I could get the $700.00 to fix it lol. It was shaking as you described and the check engine light would blink. I replaced all four injection coils and not the plugs because I was told they had been replaced. Found out today they weren't. So I replaced those and one of my ignition coils got super hot on the bottom rubber part and was really dry and the spring popped out. So I ended up getting one replacement since I had the warranty. 

After all of that the car ran like a champ!! Till five minutes ago lol. My girlfriend is telling me the temp guage is between normal and overheating. Normally it doesn't run that high. She looked under the hood and nothing was leaking or she didn't notice anything. I hope it's just a temp guage problem, but there is no telling. 

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first thing I would check or even replace for the small cost involved would be the radiator pressure cap because if that is failing on maintaining a constant pressure then it allows the coolant to boil up quicker.

Any ignition misfire would only contribute to higher engine running temperatures.

Also, check the main engine cooling fan is operating correctly

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