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I had an 86 (85.5) Ford Escort with a bad fan switch. I replaced the switch, the fan itself, the entire radiator, the thermostat, etc... and no matter what I did the temp needle would go to H on idle. The only thing that worked was to wire in a switch on my dash so I could turn the fan on whenever I wanted it. I drove it for 4 years that way. At the end I planned to try and sell the car, so I rewired it backi the way it originally was. Guess what? The fan worked! Whatever. I sold the car for 50 bucks and never missed it. To this day, it isthe only bad American car I ever ownecd.
I have 92300 miles on my car. I am going to check it tomorrow and see if any of that works. I checked the manual and I didn't see the preferred oil listed in there. I think the mechanic was putting in 3 or 4 quarts.
If your car only had 3 qts of oil in it i doubt it very much if your engine or lifters would of lasted long. Once yrs back i was 2 qts low on my 78 mustang & my lifters started knocking. A short time later i blew a head gasket. The car had 178k miles. I junked the car for 150.00.
After reading through this thread ... and the responses about oil viscosity/low oil ... and all the other diversions where folks have tried to make this as complex a problem as possible ....
It's more than likely that the quickie lube shop "checked" your anti-freeze level and strength. To do so, they open the radiator cap, even though the motor is still pretty warm, if not hot from having just driven in.
As this is something that isn't done too frequently on sealed cooling systems, it's entirely possible that the radiator cap is failing or was damaged by the removal and reinstallation ... if they even put it back on correctly (don't count on it at these places, where the "techs" are not very automotive or mechanically smart). A result of this cap failure could be exactly the problem you described, with the overheat trend at idle, but cooling down at higher (road speed) RPM ... due to the cooling system not maintaining proper pressure.
So, have the radiator cap pressure tested by a pro shop. Or, at this age/mileage, you wouldn't be ill served by simply replacing the cap with a new one for a few bucks.
After reading through this thread ... and the responses about oil viscosity/low oil ... and all the other diversions where folks have tried to make this as complex a problem as possible ....
It's more than likely that the quickie lube shop "checked" your anti-freeze level and strength. To do so, they open the radiator cap, even though the motor is still pretty warm, if not hot from having just driven in.
As this is something that isn't done too frequently on sealed cooling systems, it's entirely possible that the radiator cap is failing or was damaged by the removal and reinstallation ... if they even put it back on correctly (don't count on it at these places, where the "techs" are not very automotive or mechanically smart). A result of this cap failure could be exactly the problem you described, with the overheat trend at idle, but cooling down at higher (road speed) RPM ... due to the cooling system not maintaining proper pressure.
So, have the radiator cap pressure tested by a pro shop. Or, at this age/mileage, you wouldn't be ill served by simply replacing the cap with a new one for a few bucks.
With other manufacturers this may be the case. With a Mitsubishi........... I DOUBT IT!
those gen 1 and gen 2 mitsubishi eclipses were pretty cool back in the 90's/00's they were great AWD turbo charged tuner cars and were the car to have before the subbie WRX replaced it and then eclipse went to a N/A V6 and FWD only for the 3rd gen which killed the market for tuners buying them.
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