Well the other night I finished re-installing my test pipe because there was a small leak. After that, I drove it around to make sure the leak was gone. Everything went fine, and the car ran and sounded great. After that I go out for some food at Taco Bell with my sister and her fiance. On the way there I play around with my my sister's fiance and his Yamaha R1. I obviously waited for the engine to be nice and warm before I go anywhere near 4,000 RPMs or above. I'm finally all nice and warm, and we go at it to about 110 MPH. After that we are at Taco Bell, and I we go in and eat for probably 30 to 45 minutes. We come back out after we get done eating, I started my car because I thought we were leaving. Well we sit there for a while, and just talk about random stuff for about 15 minutes or so. I let my car continue to run and we listen to some music. Well I get back in the car, and my temperate gauge was at 4 bars. I was very confused, I got out and couldn't find any kind of a leak. I get back in, and it hits 5 bars on the temperature gauge. I turn the car off right away and check the entire car. I still couldn't find a thing, I couldn't smell or see anything. I get back in, start it back up and drive away. I drive for probably 100 yards, and my temperature is right back at 3 bars like it should be. It wasn't the coolest of nights, and the air was really thick. I am just very confused by all of this, and have never seen anything like it with my car. I have had no issues with the temperature gauge at all today. I checked tonight and it seems to be a little low on coolant. Can I just go low on coolant without seeing a leak or smelling something burn? Could it just be the lack of good air quality around the car? I'm going to add some coolant tomorrow morning before I drive back to Charlotte, NC. Any ideas on the entire serious of events?

 

sounds like a problem, You really need a more accurate temp gauge though. Im not sure where the 4th bar turns on

 

Did the fan work to cool the water in the radiator since you were standing still?

 

My friend asked me if the radiator fan was spinning, and I actually didn't know if it was or not. I was so focused on finding a leak. I'm actually letting the car idle right now, and seeing if the fan is going to come on after about 15 minutes.

 

An OBDII scanner would be very helpful too, it tells you the exact temp of the coolant that the ECU is reading. I would say anything over 210 is High. Mind you not necessarily bad but High and would be a side effect of another problem. It could be that the 4th bar comes on at 210 Im not sure. If thats the case it could just be that the gauge is lighting the 4th bar at 200ish this would not present a problem.

If its above 210 I would start lookin at other things

 

I guess you would have heard the fan spinning, so my first guess is that it is not working, reason the hot water was not cooled any more and the temp went way up...