Thread: Car overheating missing heater hose fitting

2005 Grand Prix:

About 9 months ago I had a problem with losing coolant. We finally found out it was leaking from the heater hose fitting so we changed both out.

This morning I started my car fine and went about 2 miles and noticed my temperature gauge start rising quickly. When it went up about halfway between the normal and red line, I pulled over to let it cool down. The hot coolant light came on and also a warning to turn off a/c to protect the engine. I did not have the a/c on but I turned it to heat to see if I could make it to the parts store about a mile away. The heat was blowing out cold so I turned it off.

I made it to the parts store and they said they couldn't check codes but since the upper hose was hot and the lower was cool, it must be a thermostat. I bought the thermostat, let the car cool down, put some water in the radiator, and started back home. I got about 2 miles away and the same overheating started. I stopped the car, cooled it down, and then went the additional mile home.

This afternoon when I got home, we switched out the thermostat. I went to add antifreeze in the radiator and noticed it was taking alot of antifreeze. Then I noticed that the antifreeze was coming out as fast as I put it in from just above the water pump from the hole where the heater hose fitting used to be. I went and got new fittings.

My question is what would cause a heater hose fitting to come off? I can't find it anywhere but it is missing. Could this have something to do with the fact that when I changed the fitting, I flushed the system and put in Dex-Cool antifreeze? We are going to change out the fittings and then check the water pump. Any suggestions on the cause of the fitting coming off?

Yes, that is the part. It comes with 2 elbows, one lower and one upper and they are plastic. The upper one is completely gone and I can't figure out what could have caused that. I have new ones and we are replacing both the upper and lower but I am trying to figure out if something else is wrong that caused it to blow off or otherwise disappear.

So it doesn't seem like anything major then. I'll have to check out the metal ones because these only lasted about 9 months. Thanks for all the advice.

We switched out an put the Dorman brand plastic parts on there, filled it up and it is running normal again. I found the metal ones on RockAuto and ordered those along with a new water pump so we'll swap out the plastic ones this weekend when we get the new parts. Thanks for the help!