I believe my thermostat is in need of replacement it is stuck open. I searched the message boards for an answer about temperature and have decided to go with a 180* thermostat.

My question is:

There are different brands available (oem replacement, Mr. Gasket, etc.) that are within $2-3 dollars of each other.

Is there really a difference in design or is it just a name?

Thanks!

 

I just put a Bendix (autozone brand) one in my neighbors jeep last night. Seemed to work fine. I cant really see how there could be much of a difference between brands for what it is....

 

They're all the same, just grab whatevers cheapest.

 

stant all the way... i havent had any issues with them

 

stant or ac delco have never given me issues in any of the 10's of cars ive put them in. also i trust them so much i just put a new 160 ac delco in my car yesterday.

 

I always thought so, but reliability is an issue with the cheap chinese 'economy' units. In a past life when I was a service advisor, people usually wanted to go with the $8 chinese POS instead of the better $15 Stant unit - and about 40% of them had issues within a week or two; usually overheating. I'd have their cheapo peice replaced (along with an "I told you so") with the better Stant unit and none of them ever had issues. Those cheapo thermostats are no good, they are too unreliable - and they NEVER fail open, its always in the closed position.

Spend the extra few bucks and get the best thermostat you can. I'd recommend GM or Stant myself (The GM ones aren't any more expensive really), and the Hypertech one in my LT1 has been doing pretty good so far too. Stick with one of those 3 and you should have no reason to worry.

 

one possible thing is that the knock-off ones may be a name brand in a different package. maybe you could look at all of them and determine if some were the same as the name brand by numbers or markings or something. i konw that that is a case in alot of steering parts like balljoints, etc.

but if it were my car i would still go stant. i dont think that ac delco would be a bad choice either, just for the sake of it being close to OEM, but i have never used a delco t-stat.