Overheating and losing power

[Medsker]

So I have 96,000 miles on my 2.0 and have always loved it but I'm on a trip to Phoenix to do some wheeling and it's been getting a little hotter than usual on the hills on the freeway. Getting up to 245 degrees or so. A little hot isn't a big deal to me except it is losing power also. I can still keep going but I'm floored going up a hill on the freeway. Any ideas what it could be? I've checked the fluids and all of the obvious things.

Luckily it hasn't effected my wheeling No problems with it on the trails.

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[Old Dogger]

If that is your Wrangler in your Avatar, then you are blocking a lot of CFM airflow to your radiator. Also, how about bugs possibly in your trans cooler, A/C condenser and radiator externally. If you are headed for Phoenix, our day time high temps are already over 100 degrees. So it sounds like your engine is going into limp mode, to protect it from damage. I see that you are a Engineer, so I am guessing that you are understanding what I am saying.

 

[jjvincent]

Something is going on and I'd suggest what Old Dogger said. Running at 245 is getting way up there and it's obvious that the ECU does not like what it's seeing and it's trying to save the motor (a good thing about a turbo motor is you have an easy option which is boost, to use to try to reduce overheating). After that, you might want to look into the codes and make sure there's not a thermostat correlation error. In a nutshell, the thermostat is not doing what the ECU thinks it should be doing (which is a super common problem with V6 Chryslers). So, not opening enough is a common reason for running high temps on those V6's.

 

[bjm00se]

The other common cause of overheating in jeeps is caked on mud and dirt from a previous trip through mud.

 

[Deleted member 59498]

Would a dirty engine start to insulate itself or is just nonsense?

 

[Medsker]

I thought about the winch. It's just never done it before. Limp mode make sense. I didn't think about that. I'll check the radiator in the morning. I did get into some mud recently but nothing deep. I don't think it got to the radiator but I'll check. Sounds like a good excuse to get a new front bumper where the winch sets down in ? One more day of fun here and then I'm heading home where I can get into it more thoroughly. Now I need to figure out where to go tomorrow....

 

[jjvincent]

I thought about the winch. It's just never done it before. Limp mode make sense. I didn't think about that. I'll check the radiator in the morning. I did get into some mud recently but nothing deep. I don't think it got to the radiator but I'll check. Sounds like a good excuse to get a new front bumper where the winch sets down in ? One more day of fun here and then I'm heading home where I can get into it more thoroughly. Now I need to figure out where to go tomorrow....

A simple option is to go to a car wash and just set the want to rinse. Then blast through the condenser for a bit and then see what comes out underneath.

 

[Medsker]

Well I made it home. I cleaned out the radiator at the car wash in Phoenix and that didn't seem to help. It still got hot a few times on the drive home. I'll have to play with it some more and see what I can figure out. I may pull off the winch and lights and see if that makes a difference before I buy a new bumper.

The trip was 8 days. I drove 58 hours and 2700 miles. It was a great trip!

 

[Windshieldfarmer]

Stupid question - is it low on antifreeze? I recently checked mine for the first time and it was a pint low….I suspect you’ve already ruled that out…

 

[Medsker]

Mine was about a pint low as well. I topped it off in the middle of all of this. Unfortunately it didn't make a difference

 

[OneTanjeep]

Well I made it home. I cleaned out the radiator at the car wash in Phoenix and that didn't seem to help. It still got hot a few times on the drive home. I'll have to play with it some more and see what I can figure out. I may pull off the winch and lights and see if that makes a difference before I buy a new bumper.

The trip was 8 days. I drove 58 hours and 2700 miles. It was a great trip!

It could be condensation built up in the intercooler causing these problems. I had it happen in an ecoboost engine previously once, the intercooler was drained it went back to normal functioning.

 

[Go_Galt]

I had a rented 2.0 JLUR in Utah for a couple weeks that did what you describe. Cruising at 80 on the highway it went into what felt like a limp mode, and was significantly down on power (to the point that it would no longer hold 7th or 8th gear).

I don't know what my water or oil temps were at the time, because I had never been in a JL before, and didn't know how to navigate the menus ? But this was not accompanied by any idiot lights or alerts on the infotainment screens. Coolant level was fine. Vehicle only had 16,000 miles at the time.

Both times, when it was parked and allowed to cool, it went back to normal. I chalked it up to an extremely aggressive limp mode that killed boost once a certain temperature threshold was reached, but I have no idea.

 

[bjm00se]

Would a dirty engine start to insulate itself or is just nonsense?

Ordinary dirt and gunk, no.

But folks sometimes deliberately seek out mud pools and drive through deep slippery junk for fun.

And this can and does lead to a thick caked on layer stuck in the radiator or all over the bottom of oil pan and transmission, and has been known to interfere with normal cooling and cause overheating - especially in the radiator.

 

[dos531]

Mine has 20k miles and behaves the same way during sustained climbs on the freeway. All the heat exchangers are clean and the coolant levels are full, but still coolant temp can get into the 240s and oil temp close to 260f in those conditions. I think its just a function of the cooling system not being able to shed as much heat as the engine is creating in those environments. The coolant has to cool the turbo, exhaust manifold, transmission cooler and the oil cooler in addition to the engine itself which puts a huge amount of heat into the system especially if you're in boost for prolonged periods of time. In addition, the air has to pass through the ac condenser and the intercooler heat exchanger before it even hits that paper thin radiator to get whatever cooling capacity is left in that air. Its not a huge surprise it acts this way.

 

[Zandcwhite]

Mine has 20k miles and behaves the same way during sustained climbs on the freeway. All the heat exchangers are clean and the coolant levels are full, but still coolant temp can get into the 240s and oil temp close to 260f in those conditions. I think its just a function of the cooling system not being able to shed as much heat as the engine is creating in those environments. The coolant has to cool the turbo, exhaust manifold, transmission cooler and the oil cooler in addition to the engine itself which puts a huge amount of heat into the system especially if you're in boost for prolonged periods of time. In addition, the air has to pass through the ac condenser and the intercooler heat exchanger before it even hits that paper thin radiator to get whatever cooling capacity is left in that air. Its not a huge surprise it acts this way.

Ours does it too, especially when it’s hot out. I just ordered the cold case radiator as it seems to be the only performance radiator available. I’ll update this thread with the results when it shows up at the end of the month.

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