My car never over heats until I get in stop and go traffic. When it does I turn on the heat and put it in neutral and that keep it from totally overheating.once I get going again it goes back down to normal any advice on what it could be

 

Two possibilities.

1) the radiator is low on coolant. When the engine is not running and cold, remove the radiator cap. The radiator tank should be 100% full, all the way to the top with no air pocket in it.

2) one or both of the radiator fans may not be running. Start the engine and turn the air conditioning on. Look at the radiator fans. Both fans should be running.

 

Do as Dennis suggests.

Find your cooling problem(s) as the consequence of not can be catastrophic.

 

I had the same problem on my 01 Durango. I ended up replacing the electric fan, but that didn't fix it. I finally discovered that the thermostat can fail partly open. I've never had that happen before, they always failed closed on me. The real clue was the fact that, after the temp started to rise, when I went on the freeway going slightly downhill it took a while to drop back down, but if I went uphill at a higher RPM it dropped like a rock.

I replaced the thermo, and it's been fine since. So unless the thermo design on our cars is different, don't rule it out here.

 

+2 had the same problem. 1 radiator fan out...which can cause it to overheat and evaporate coolant. I almost thought I was gonna blow a HG when the lever went to the top and I had a car bra with a grill screen on.

Cheaper to replace the bad motor with a new one than the whole assembly.

Thermostats can also seem to work fine until under load. A boiling water/pot test of one I thought was good...turned out to be opening only about halfway...which was enough to cause occasional overheating