engine overheating?

When I was driving today I noticed the engine temp guage move into the red. I pulled over and let it cool down (this took about 20 seconds on the guage). Checked the coolant and everything was fine. Continuing the journey this kept happening, sometimes after 1 mile and sometimes after 10 miles. During driving when guage entered the red it would usually flick back to the normal position and repeat this every so often. The car engins didn't seem to be over hot. I take it that an engine that has hit the red zone would at least take a few minutes to return to the normal position if the engine was over heating.

Could it be a faulty stat?

Any ideas on what this problem could be or how to fix it?

If the engine was genuinely overheating it would take quite a while to cool down properly - certainly not the 20secs you mention.

Perhaps your temp gauge is just faulty?

Or your thermostat is dead/faulty?

it could be a few things...stat/temp sender

what car do you have?

I would recommend turning the fan on full and heat up full if you see this happening again and try to get the problem diagnosed asap

A few weeks back the temperature gague shot up into the red, when I
drove at any kind of speed dropped back to dead normal around town.

I took it to my usual garage who changed the thermostat/flushed the
system, no change, took the car back they had another look and assured
me the engine wasn't overheating. By searching the internet, people seem to be saying it could be the cluster. What is this and does it seem likely?
My mechanic took the car out on the road to the point where it should be about steaming/bubbling and the engine was perfectly normal, ran a test on the head gasket which was fine. He too was 90% sure it was the cluster.

The car is doing some weird things electrically, the cental locking
locks the doors as it's being driven, the gague tends to go up and down some times when I go up or down hills. All point to an electrical fault.



Anyone any ideas?

"The cluster"thats a new one on me!! What make/model of car is it? Oh hold on,maybe your mechanic meant the "Instrument cluster"Thats your dashboard instruments,speedo,fuel,temp gauge etc.

"The Cluster"......?? Sounds like it's a "happy pin on the laughing shaft" fault

Had a problem like that with a car that had been garaged for many years that I put back on the road and it turned out to be a problem with the fan belt !

the cluster is a slang name for the gauges in the dash . You normally can not change out one faulty gauge but must change the full cluster of instruments,