Temp gauge barely moves and using coolant

Harry,

Your gauge moves beyond the normal towards Hot, or stays at the bottom or barely into the normal range? In either case you have a problem, but if your engine is consistently heating and you are losing coolant it would mean you are either leaking coolant or burning it.

Easiest thing to do is to visually look for coolant leaks or evidence thereof(residue near hose connections to heater core, radiator, water pump, any bypass pipes, etc). If you can't spot it visually, go rent a pressure tester from autozone and pump the cooling system up to about

13psi and if the gauge starts dropping you should be able to see the leak. Still no visible leak? Check your dipstick. Could be a blown headgasket.

A gauge that consistently stays low would typically mean the thermostat is stuck open. You still need to find out where your coolant is going, but this is less serious. Swapping thermostats is usually a pretty simple job.

Chris

How old is the thermostat on this 21-year-old vehicle?

What engine? The 2.9 V6 had a habit of cracking the head between #1 and 2 and between #5 and 6 creating an external leak and into the combustion chamber and burned. They also had intake manifold to cylinder head leaks, both coolant and oil. I can't recall any cooling system problems specific to the 2.3 4 banger. ch