Sorry to ask this but, my mom's camry has been overheating lately, at least thats what the coolant temp indictator on the dashboard says. I think this may be either a bad water pump or a blown head gasket. There is a great cooling loss in the coolant resovoir, in fact it is so bad that when she overfilled it and drove 7 minutes to and from a supermarket, the coolant level went from overfilled, about an inch above full, to below the low level line. I turned the engine on and waited for it to warm up and the coolant temp increased very quickly. The engine was pretty warm to thr touch after about 5 minutes of me turning the car on. I squeezed the upper radiator hose, at least what I believe it to be on her car as it was a large hose connected to the engine that connected to the radiator, and I felt no pressure nor any resistance. Another very important part is when we were driving this morning, the coolant temp on the tach went up very fast, this was on a straight road with throttle all the way though the speed limit was easiy obeyed, the car never went over 45 mph, when we began to turn into the supermarket, the colant temp on the dash went down, this is what leads me to believe it is a blown head gasket. Can I do any fyrther tests other than having the system pressure tested to diagnose this problem. Thanks.

 

sorry about the spelling. I didn't really look when I was naming the topic.

 

oh and another thing, I checked the oil to see if it looked like water was in the oil, and it seemed fine, it was thick and the level was only a centimeter or two past the full mark. Does anyone know how to check the water to see if their is oil in the water?