Reply to "Some good...some bad! It passed the MoT test ... But it over heated on the way home."

After checking and confirming all the things others have suggested that I'm sure know more than me, I can share with you my experience when starting my car after emptying the water system.

The water hoses needed to be "burped" or squeezed to get all the air out of the system. The manual says something about jacking the rear of the car up as well.

It took burping, and bleeding air out of my radiator with the little valves on the radiator to get the bubbles out completely.

Also, we needed to run the engine, all the way to HOT, hot enough to cause the thermostat to open. If the thermostat never opens, water will never flow through the radiator and fill the whole system.

When we did this, the temp gauge went to 200, but then the thermostat opened (you need to be ready to pour coolant into the main tank as soon as this happens) and only THEN will the cooling system accept coolant and fill itself up completely.

The thermostat needs to open. The engine gets hot before this happens because it has no water in it, or very little water (we filled the main tank, and had one HOT, and one cold water hose until the thermostat opened, then WOOSH! the radiator got hot, we quickly poured coolant into the main tank until it stopped accepting water, burping and squeezing the soft pipes (up front) the whole time. We also opened the bleeder valves on the radiator to let air out, they shot some coolant, then some air, then solid coolant, we closed them at that point.

We cycled the car a few times after that, checking that the thermostat opened at 180 (watched the temps drop from 185 down to like 140-150) and then back up to 180.

Now it bounces between 180 and 150, and as long as it's doing that I know all is good to go.

The expansion tank, I leave 1/2 full, so there's room to go either way.

I was told the whole water system was completely sealed, meaning even the expansion tank cap was sealed. That's how my car is running, with a sealed expansion tank cap.

I've read here others say the expansion cap is supposed to be vented (hole in the top), I'm not sure which is correct there, I know my car runs with everything sealed completely.