Why does my cars temp gauge go to the red befor the t-stat opens? It scares me and hell now I am going through water.

 

t stat could be going bad. spend a couple bucks on one with a lower opening temp and save some worry

 

This my third stat. It came out of my other car so I know it works. I have heard of this happening to lots of people but it still scares me. I am going to put a new temp sender in next. Where is it located. I know the one next to the thermostat is a sender for the computer It isn't the temp sender. Well at least I don't think. I think it blew the head gasket cause now it goes through water.

 

Other than a mechanical problem (t-stat etc) these cars are notorious for having inacccurate gauges. NONE of mine are accurate. Seriously. But the temp gauge bothers me too. Mine is off by 20-30 degrees verified by scanner. In fact I bought a sending unit today to see if it helps.

There is a test you can do with resistors to see if the gauge is "about" right. If I remember correctly 55ohms is 260 and 1350ohms is 100. Just jump the sending unit wire to ground with a resistor of those values to check. You may need to do a search to make sure the numbers I quoted are correct but I'm close by memory.

 

does the temp get up into the red and then drops to normal range after
the thermostat opens?-if that is the case,you have no "bypass"flow
past the thermostat(hoses hooked up wrong,heater hoses blocked etc.)
Without circulation around the thermostat,it will remain closed until
coolant hot enough to open it finds its way to the thermostat-by that
time there may be hot spots and possible boiling in the heads.