How Do I Know If The Radiator In My 1999 VW Beetle Is (really) Clogged?

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John Profile
John answered
Did the dipstick mechanic actually flush the radiator? If he did not look at the radiator you as the customer should have said something but it's a little late now...and not all mechanics are dipsticks just putting it out there... The answer is depends on what you took the car in for in the first place whether or not that would have had any effect on the damage already done by driving the car without having it checked over ...what I am saying is usually the vehicle will have symptoms a long time before it gives up the ghost..blows a gasket and cracks the block by losing all it's water or boiling over from no oil/water circulating in the engine...I can't say who's at fault for this since I don't know your maintenance habits for your car...only you and the mechanic truly know and the Lord...hope this helped
thanked the writer.
Anonymous
Anonymous commented
Thanks for your answer!
It's a combination of being a little lax with the maintenance, and (primarily) horrible and unreliable mechanics. This is actually the third mechanic, who was more or less over-correcting the mess that the second one left. (Here's a sample of number 2: He'd run the car to see if it was overheating, it was, and then he'd hose it down with cold water to cool it.)
The car never overheated enough to actually blow the engine and melt the cylinder head and all that. As soon as it overheated the first time, I stopped it, towed it, and got it looked at. The original problem seems to have been the temperature sensor, which COULD have blown the gasket. This got exacerbated by the dipstick second mechanic who appears to have aided (or created) the cracking of the cylinder head. The thing is, this third mechanic (who seemed reliable at first) supposedly did everything by the book. Starting with a compression test. Then dismantling, repairing the cylinder head and replacing the gasket. Now that everything's back together, the car is still overheating, and he's saying that the radiator is clogged and that the fans WORK, but don't turn on when they're supposed to, hence, radiator. I guess my real question is, is he full of crap? Am I, again, being swindled? And how can I know that this is the actual problem?
ANY help or guidance you - or anyone - could send my way would be MUCH appreciated!
Thank you!
John
John commented
Sounds like your on a round track after fixing one thing that is caused by the other problem it then causes the engine to overheat but if the radiator is not working then it causes the engine to fail and once the engine is fixed then if the radiator is clogged from boiled/overheated radiator fluid/specialized for the car turning into a jelly like substance causing the engine to have to be fixed/cleaned out again...so i guess what i am saying is you need to decide if the car is worth the money you need to put into it to repair everything at the same time....each time you wait to repair something it causes another problem to arise...in my opinion (yes and no) they are playing games unless you are not able to repair the whole problem at the same time this will be a continued cycle/round track happening over and over again...since they both work in (together)conjunction with each other...i hope you understand what i am saying....hope this helped....yes, the mechanics should have told you that both things needed to be repaired at the same time to prevent this from happening over and over again and it should have been on the quote for the work to be performed....if you truly believe they are doing this i would take it to a dealership and make sure to explain what is going on and you want all repairs in writing to correct the whole problem and a guarantee of work performed... And their opinion as to what the other mechanics did wrong...

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