Ok so being that i live in arizona cooling is kind of a must, heres how the story goes; Got the car with a stock t-stat, ran fine for a few months then out of nowhere the temp spikes and the car wont stop overheating, turns out the t-stat is to blame, so i throw a 180* in to take it a step cooler.

Car runs alright, this t-stat lasts about a year, couple months ago, BAM overheating, rad is full, fans operational, no leaks, air dam is in good shape, again....t-stat. SO.... i put in a 160* cuz it still wasnt running quite cool enough for my tastes, amazingly it runs perfect, 200* in the middle of the day (100*+ outside) and at night stuck dead at 180* it ran perfectly. Tonight i went to the movies in tempe which is about 15 miles away on the highway, right as i get to the theater it jumps from 200* up to about 235*, checked the rad it was a little low, filled it up and put in water wetter to give it a little extra and from what i saw on the drive back it wont drop below 200*.

Keep in mind i have an aftermarket temp gauge with a capillary tube so its dead accurate, Im wondering if the t-stat is bad and from my experience with this so far the defect rate is up there. Again, no leaks, full rad, good airdam etc etc, could it be my t-stat again? Yesterday it was about the same temp outside as today and i never peaked over 205* beating the throttle, today i drive it nice and it decides to go bipolar on me.

Opinions?

TIA

 

Been my experience that thermostats loose tension after being heat cycled and need to be changed every year or so.

 

Been my experience that thermostats loose tension after being heat cycled and need to be changed every year or so. Also once a thermostat has been run hot it is trash, can not be trusted.

 

Yeah thats always been the case with my other cars i mean ill have had the car for 3 years in august and im at my 4th thermostat but i could barely get a year out of one of them, my stock was really old, i had to replace the whole housing along with it due to corosion, coolant started weeping out the side of it lol, the second one probably went out when my rad blew up on me but this third one im gonna guess it was just bad luck it was only in for a month or so and ive never gotten the car up above 215* since then with the exception of the other night. Even though 235* isnt too hot i swapped out the thermostat to be safe and now its running alright again i just hope this one lasts

 

Im having an issue im almost pos is the thermo, i installed a 180* mr gasket thermo, well that one went to $h!t on me after like a month and a half, so i got it replaced for nothing, they even gave me a new gasket, but on my way home tonight, damn thing is in the red again, to say the least im a little angry about it, since i put in the first one in the early part of may, aka like a month and a half ago, and this one in like this past mon or tues, so is there somthing else this could b, water pump bad? clogged up system, HUGE air pocket that didnt get out in the 20-30 mins of running without a cap on adding when it sucked down? or am i just using a crappy thermo and i got the 2 bad ones? my old thrmo, it would only overheat if my fan wasnt running, when i put in the new thermo, on a cooler day 70-75* day it would run at like 190* now its in the red, and if i dont crank up the heat im afraid it will start boiling over, maybe i got a bad cap? i dunno, anybody shed some light on what may b the prob?