is my car actually "running warm" or is this how things are supposed....

[ryan roopnarine]

to be?

some background...i know that my coolant temp sensor is dying, as before it hits 12 o'clock it likes to undulate on the way up. the real telltale of this is that if i drive the car in the heat for a few hours, then park for half an hour, the tranny goes into sport (ie the car thinks its just been in a cold start) for a few shifts before it works normally again.

previously, in the nasty florida heat (85 deg F at 12 AM), the car would get up to 12, and stay at 12, no matter what (unless i was driving on the highway for 30 mins or more, in which case it would run about 1/2 needle below the centre. i began increasing the antifreeze concentration from an unknown quantity (around 30 percent antifreeze 70 water) to maybe 40 right now, and increasing......after the last dose of straight antifreeze, i noticed that when driving, the car will do about 1/2 needle below 12 o'clock when driving. when parked up in the heat now (for more than 15 minutes), however, the temp willgo to about 1/2 needle above 12

on brunos' pic, here, it would be about 187 deg or so


and be about 177 when driving. before it was consistently at 182 unless parked for a real long time, where it would get to about 187 or so.

i know, also that i need to do capacitors on the cluster, which might account for some of the weirdness with the gauge.

having said all this, summing up

car runs cooler than before when driving after adding more and more antifreeze, warms up a bit when parked (to about 187)

before adding antifreeze, car would run 182 all of the time, unless parked more than 20 mins, would rise to 187.

any thoughts?

PS...forgot to add. car IS NOT overheating. the car's temperature hits a brick wall at 187, it won't go any further, and goes down quickly if you drive it when it does this. to the best of my knowledge this started happening after i increased the antifreeze concentration.