95 Saturn Overheating and the temp gage 3/4 vs 1/2 debate

Oct 17, 2004 0 Replies

Hello, my 95 SL2 A.T. starting to heat up in city traffic and the Service Engine Soon light comes on. It used to go to the red and I had it checked and the mechanic changed the temp sensor. The car, however, still keeps heating to the point where the temp guage is 3/4 or very near to the red area. I took it back to the mechanic and he said that its "normal" behaviour.



I have also read the same thing here and other news groups and forums. I do remember that upto a couple years ago before I started having all these problems with my SL2, it ALWAYS stayed a notch below the 1/2 mark. The fan would come on and the temp never really went over the "notch-before-the-1/2-mark".



Now my mechanic and almost everyone else tells me that its normal (which may very well be). But why is it, that when I let the car do the "normal" thing, ie; let it heat up to 3/4 or so the SES comes on and the OBD gives me TRANSMISSION codes 22/23 etc..



If I do the heater/AC turn on dog-and-pony show, and keep the temp between 1/4 and 1/2.. the SES never comes on, the car doesn't do the abrupt shifting that it does when it gets to 3/4 temp guage and everything seeems to work relatively smoothly.



Can someone tell me if there is a way to hard wire the fan and just be done with this thing? I know I could prolly jumper the ends of the temp sensor cable, but would that fry the computer if I do it for long periods of time?



Hope someone can shed some light on this issue..


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