When I drive around town my temp seems to rise up to about 200, then may climb to 210 and be pretty stable ( I just recently bought the car and do mostly highway driving so my in town trips have been about 20 min. or so. I have not tested this for longer town drives. ) If it is at 210, when I stop at a light, it may fall to 200, until i move again. But, when I turn the A/C on, the temp has climbed to maybe 230. I stop, turn off A/C and idle the temp back down to 190-200. On the highway w/out A/C, the car will ride at like 140-150, but with A/C will rise to 180-200. The highway temps are not that concerning, but the in town ones are making me a bit nervous. This just seems like a lot of fluctuation and I don't know why the A/C would have such an impact on the cooling system. Has anybody ever seen this issue before. Thanks for any advise you can give.

P.S. The car is a 90 GT hatch with a stock motor (to the best of my knowledge).

JC
1990 GT hatch

 

could be your thermostat or maybe your clutch fan is sticking???

 

cool, thanks. I was actually going to look at the t-stat. I am also looking into the whole taurus fan swap. I appreciate the help.

JC
90 GT hatch