All this time of owning my 2000 Mustang GT, I was convinced that the temperature gauge was an "idiot" gauge. It acted like a placebo always at the 1/2 way mark, and if my car ever got hot, I expected that I would immediately see lights and the gauge pegged in the red.
Not so. This weekend, I drove to Vegas on what was a 109 degree day in the desert. We were uphill, in a traffic jam, with the A/C blasting in a fully loaded car. The temperature gauge actually moved!!! :) It went to 3/4 for a minute until we started moving more than 5mph. All this time I thought it was stuck at 1/2.
As soon as I started moving, the temp went back to 1/2.