My 2014 Stingray automatic with 24,000 miles. Returning to Kentucky from the Vette show at Indy, I was on I-74 about halfway between Indy and Cincy. It seems that they have torn up some 20 miles or so of the eastbound lanes so everyone gets many miles of one lane each way. There was a LOT of stopping and moving a few feet at a time, since traffic both ways was solid as far as I could see. It was about 80 degrees.

I happened to look at the gauges and saw the coolant temp was at the first red mark, just below 260. I turned off the A/C and opened the windows. Ina few minutes it was at the top mark pf 260 and then I got the "Overheat" message and to to go to idle. Of course, that was what I had been doing! I popped the hood, an advantage to our front-hinged hood. I shut off the engine, but had to restart often to stay with the traffic. After several of these cycles, the temp started down to about 240. Finally we began to move, and the temp normalized so I ran the A/C again. No problem the rest of the trip. As I could not pull off the road, I could not confirm that the fan was running, which had seemed the likely issue..

At home the next day I rechecked the coolant level, normal as it was when I checked it before the trip. I ran it with the A/C on full cold for a half hour. The fan that I had suspected was running fine with no hesitation. No problem.

Ideas?

Dave

 

I just had my 14 Z51 in the shop to be looked at for the same reason.

Turned out, that the previous owner hit a curb and bent the skid plate just enough to bend the lower radiator bracket causing a hairline crack, resulting in an ever so slow leak of coolant. I know you said your levels were ok, but get the car up on a lift and take a look at her underneath...you might just find the cause (as I did)...

 

I ran into the same issue and detailed my ordeal previously. Unfortunately myself and a handful of members can't figure out what's wrong with our cars and brushed it off as an anomaly. My issue was my fan wasn't kicking on. I experienced the problem 4 times now since my 3 years of ownership. It's never a coolant issue or a thermostat issue. Past 240 degrees my fan never kicked on. To my understanding the ECM sends out a signal to the fan that has two speeds. One forum member turned off their A/C as well thinking it would help, but it didn't matter. Also turning your A/C on should trigger the fan to kick on at the highest speed when your car has reached normal operating temperatures. The member that tried to turn the fan on while starting to overheat, that move didn't work. I tried with corporate and my dealership (boardwalk in redwood city, ca) and they couldn't replicate the issue, which i knew they probably wouldn't be able to. Corporate told me there's nothing they could do. There's no hard code stored in the computer even after receiving that overheating message.

The only fix, is to quickly shut the car off, and turn it back on again. For some reason that resets everything and the fans come back on. Yes sometimes i'm pulled over on the side of the freeway, just to momentarily shut the car off and turn it back on. Let me know if you find something more than just restarting the car to fix it. Good luck.

 

My car never goes past 220 - pretty much sits there in any weather - guess I got luck - knock on wood - good luck probably easy fix

 

Dave,
If you do a search you will find several odd intermittent cases of overheating with the 2014 model year cars. I recall that a few early ones were found to have a problem with the coolant reservoir opening being slightly misshapen and not fitting properly but that didn't explain most of the intermittent cases. It seems to be some random glitch in the control system that causes the fan not to be activated when it should.

There was a thread a month or so ago where the owner stated the car truly overheated along with the messages but the digital temperature display didn't show the coolant being hot so that might be a clue as to the glitch in the control system for the 2014 where the fan and the digital display aren't getting the correct data under some conditions.

 

What "heat" are we talking about. There are gauges for engine, oil, and coolant. I'm in the midst of a road trip where outside temps have been above 105F. I've seen oil temp at 234. All temps average above 200 on freeway driving and up mountain passes. Average seems to be about 210 or so. I do cringe at these inevitable construction delays.

 

Coolant my friend

 

I just had this happen and documented it at the dealership, mine does it over 50 miles driving in one sesion.. The 2014 fans are failing after driving some amount of miles.. once it restarts the fan will come on and drop the temp back to 220 but it sounds like yours has almost failed completely..

Mine is being replaced under the extended warranty and I am getting the upgraded performance Z06 600 watt fan for $329 as the replacement The original 500 watt fan is over $550 to replace...

How many miles had you driven when this started happening?

 

Many thanks to all who replied.

The coolant level was still normal when I checked the next day, so no leak issue.

I had tried turning off the A/C first. It was a last try to shut off the engine (in a stop and go line of traffic) to let it cool. After that very short shutdown the engine cooled normally, so I'll go with it being the ECM failing to run the fan.

Now I know that if it recurs, I can shut off the engine and restart to get it going again. A software bug I can get around!

Thanks again!

Dave

 

This is a fan controller/motor issue. Mine was doing the same thing.

This only happens after driving on the highway for a period of time. When driving on the highway the fan is not running due to the amount of air going through the radiator being enough to cool the engine. When you come to a stop the fan then needs to turn on to help move air through the rad to cool the engine. However, the long duration of hot air that was just moving over the fan control module/motor has caused an issue where there is not enough energy stored in the capacitors to get the fan moving when called for likely due to the extreme heating of the motor causing an increase in resistance to rotation. Replacing the fan will fix this issue at least until the fan control module/motor goes bad again.