heat blows cold and hot, and overheats and cools

[dgreenhouse2003]

Hey all,
I am new here but I know how to use forums and have already spent alot of time searching and reading without finding an answer so please read my question and HELP.

I have inherited my mom's 95 4cyl camry with 165k. It overheated and she had to get it towed home so she finally decided it was time to get a new car.
about a thousand miles before she had this overheating issue she got a new water pump (she always got whatever the mechanics told her so she ended up spending thousands of dollars every year on this car and it has so many new parts). I brought it to GT auto in Highland Park NJ and they installed a new radiator and coolant temp switch. Now it works but still intermittently overheats??!?! Also, it intermittently blows cold air when the heat is on. This is sometimes connected to the gauge going up into the red and sometimes the gauge stays level when cold air is blowing with the heat on.
WTF?
any help would be greatly appreciated...

[Mike Gerber]

It sounds like they didn't bleed the cooling system properly when they installed the new radiator and there is some air left in the system. Take it back to them and explain the problem to them. They should bleed the system again. Don't keep driving the car like this. Overheating today's engines with aluminum cylinder heads can be costly. You can destroy the head gasket or warp the cylinder head itself. Then it does become costly.

Mike

[dgreenhouse2003]

I am about 30 miles away from them now. what is required to bleed the coolant system properly?
I assume its just a matter of running the car with the heat on and the rad cap off and then topping off the coolant...

[Mayne Event]

OR when ur mom overheated it, she could have got it hot enuff to affect the head gasket, was that replaced? Also I dont know if the "coolant temp switch" is refering to the thermostat but that could have been the problem from day one. If that hasent been replaced get yourself a new thermostat, pretty cheap. If that fails like I said, only other thing I could think of is the head gasket if she got that to hott.

[DFBonnett]

First two things to do would be to check the coolant level and verify that both upper and lower radiator hoses get hot and/or are not collapsed. Was the thermostat ever changed?

[Slow-yota]

Try the changine the thremostat.. it could be bad.

As for the coolent bleeding you can do that your self
just let the car idle with the radiator cap off until it worms up and is almost ready to overflow then put the cap back on... you can rev it a little bit once before u put the cap on (some coolent will shoot out but at least you will no there is no air in the system

also have you changed the radiator cap? is it boilling over into your resivior? if soo your radiator cap is bad... (had that happen to my car when i put the motor back in after i swaped the trans)

[qeg84dox]

I just went through the same thing. It ended up being the head gasket. If you decide to change the thermostat, make sure you get one that has the "jiggle valve" to bleed air from the system. Your best bet is to go to the dealer and get one $17.00 -get a new gasket while your at it.