Hello everybody, im quite new here and not the greatest when it comes to working on vehicles(getting there). Anyways heres some background, I have a 2000 Suzuki Grand Vitara, 2.5l v6 engine, manual transmission, 207k miles. The issues i am having are overheating and the car will die/stall at idle or downshifting. The car was in Texas its whole life until i bought it and now it is in the harsh cold of Wisconsin.
Overheating- I replaced the thermostat about 2 weeks ago after having the car heat up to red and spray coolant out of the overflow tank. It drove fine up until yesterday when i noticed it slightly overheating. the temp gauge usually sits just below 1/2, it climbed to about 3/4 on the highway and once i was off dropped down to just over 1/2, so still running a bit warmer than usual at less than highway speeds. i was able to hear what sounded like boiling coming from under the hood, couldnt pinpoint exactly where it was coming from.
Die/stall at idle/downshift- This has been a recurring issue that seems to come and go. it occurs usually when engine is warmed up, upon stopping/downshifting/going into neutral the car will drop RPMs and stall out. Usually it starts right back up no problem, but yesterday(same day my car began overheating again) it would struggle a bit when restarting it, but i was able to get it going again without much trouble. Ive run fuel injector cleaner through within the past week.
My question is, can these issues be related? also where should i go from here for both diagnostics and repair? im a pretty broke college student so dont really have cash to bring it to a shop nor throw a bunch of parts on it that were not the issue. any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you
-Dougstep
Overheating- I replaced the thermostat about 2 weeks ago after having the car heat up to red and spray coolant out of the overflow tank. It drove fine up until yesterday when i noticed it slightly overheating. the temp gauge usually sits just below 1/2, it climbed to about 3/4 on the highway and once i was off dropped down to just over 1/2, so still running a bit warmer than usual at less than highway speeds. i was able to hear what sounded like boiling coming from under the hood, couldnt pinpoint exactly where it was coming from.
Die/stall at idle/downshift- This has been a recurring issue that seems to come and go. it occurs usually when engine is warmed up, upon stopping/downshifting/going into neutral the car will drop RPMs and stall out. Usually it starts right back up no problem, but yesterday(same day my car began overheating again) it would struggle a bit when restarting it, but i was able to get it going again without much trouble. Ive run fuel injector cleaner through within the past week.
My question is, can these issues be related? also where should i go from here for both diagnostics and repair? im a pretty broke college student so dont really have cash to bring it to a shop nor throw a bunch of parts on it that were not the issue. any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you
-Dougstep