Car wants to overheat while sitting at a stoplight but cools right down once I am moving again. As my username suggests, I am not a wrench but my guess would be this is the Condenser fan not operating. When I shut the car off, the Radiator fan is operating. Any help would be appreciated

 

Replace your thermostat its only a couple of bucks and real easy to do. Just search it on youtube and it should show you. It cools down when you are going Because its getting cooled by the air.

 

I thought that thermostats were either open, or closed and that they can not just work sporatically? If the thermostat was closed, I would think that the air flow alone would cool it down enough...I mean, there are no fins on my engine to be considered air cooled right?

 

You should check to see if both the radiator and condensor fan is working
Also check you radiator fluids and if both fans turns on assuming there
Blowong in the right direction then i would recremend what yager said and
Change out your thermostat

 

thermostat would not be the issue. if its closed the car would over heat moving or not, if open it would warm up slowly and stay at normal operating temp once it finally warms up.

sounds like a fan issue.

when you turn your ac on check to see if both fans run. if your radiator fan(passenger side fan) does not run you may need to replace temp switch a on your thermostat housing.

also check the easy stuff too. make sure your radiator and overflow is not low

 

Thanks for the advise everyone. Both fans are indeed turning and my radiator is full. I think I will try Yager's advise and swap out my thermostat since it's cheap and quick and go from there - thanks again for all the help

 

okay they both come on.

now start the car and see if the radiator fan turns on. if should turn on just before the half way mark on the temp gauge.

usually takes 15-20 mins at idle or you can keep it revved at 2.5k rpm until it gets there.

if the gauge goes past the half mark, turn car off and replace temp switch a

 

Update if anyone cares - or for future readers. Driving home I thought that if my thermostat is 1/2 way open, then in theory the faster the water pump turns, the cooler my engine should be. Got to a stoplight and the temp gage started rising...I popped the car in neutal and increased the RPM's to about 2500...sure enough the temp gage dropped. Anyway I swapped out the T-Stat (which sucked by the way - that rear bolt is an SOB to get to) ran the car at idle with the A/C on for about 20 minutes. No leaks and the temp gage never even reached the half way point. Sweet. thanks again for all the suggestions. Now does anyone no how to get the SRS light to shut off...maybe I'll just put a piece of electrical tape over the light so I dont see it.