You know, as a kid who bought a lot of cheap used cars and still today I buy cheap old cars; I was told and believe that a car with a temp gauge is more likely to be the better car.
If a car is running hotter than usual, it is likely to be bought in for servicing.
With an idiot light, there is little warning before the engine just burns out.
I think a used car without a temp guage should be knocked down a few hundred bucks for having "unknown wear".
What do you think about an uncalibrated temp gauge? The only ones I recall seeing (mostly on Toyotas recently, but others in the
1970's) have at most 4 marks: two at the limits of the gauge, Cold and Hot (call this 0% and 100%, although the needle does move a bit farther than this), and two (inside the two above, maybe at 10% and 90%) that are presumably have some sort of resemblance to the temperature range that might be called "normal". No degrees anything is listed. Near the end of a "normal" drive, be it 10 miles or 50, it usually reads about 40%.Did they *ever* make a calibrated temp gauge for normal, consumer-type cars (as opposed to trucks, tanks, buses, etc.)? How about on a Ford Model T?
Mrs Irish Mike wrote
More fool you to believe that mindless silly s*it.
No reason why the computer control system cant tell you that its running hotter than usual and that is precisely what happens with the better cars.
Pig ignorant lie. If you turn the car off when the light goes on, it cant burn out.
More fool you.
I seem to recall in the 1930s some cars had a glass gauge in the radiator cap, which was outside the car in those days.
I consider this to be a SAFETY ISSUE.
And I intend to file a query with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
More fool you, particularly when that car has a temperature guage and you didnt even notice.
They will file your 'query' in the round filing cabinet under the desk where it belongs.
Yeah, they need a laugh once in a while.
You are just one rude a-hole.
But for others:
If you drive a car every day you know where that temp gauge reading is suppose to be. If it is elevated, then you know something is amiss-- not enough to trigger the check engine, but enough. An engine can run hotter (think work harder) if the tires are not properly inflated, if the brakes do not fully release, if there is junk in front of the radiator or hanging from the chassis, a fan belt may be loose and ready to break, anyone of the fluids maybe low.
A cool engine is not good either. If there is no radiator fluid, the guage will read cool until it is too late.
Next to the gas guage, the temp gauge could be the most important guage.
I have bought few cars that didn't have a temp guage and if I had a car without one, I'd buy one and put it on.
Mrs Irish Mike wrote
Whereas you are impeccibly polite at all times eh ? Yeah, right.
The check system can do anything you can do you stupid cow.
And the check system can tell you its running hotter than it usually does.
Wrong, as always.
Wrong, as always, particularly when there is a decent check system which is precisely what all modern cars have.
You have always been and always will be, completely and utterly irrelevant.
I'd gauge from the inane comments here that most posters are at least a tiny bit irrelevant ...
That is too funny.
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