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Thermostat failing?

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Old 06-10-2013
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Thermostat failing?

98 Honda Civic DX.

I noticed that the temp gauge never rises to the midline, only about 1/3 up, even after an hour of driving. I just had the coolant flushed.

Is this a sign the thermostat is failing? Or am I worried about nothing?

Thank you!
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Re: Thermostat failing?

How far from the midline is it??
Originally Posted by spyglass
98 Honda Civic DX.

I noticed that the temp gauge never rises to the midline, only about 1/3 up, even after an hour of driving. I just had the coolant flushed.

Is this a sign the thermostat is failing? Or am I worried about nothing?

Thank you!
Old 06-10-2013
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Re: Thermostat failing?

Originally Posted by andress1021
How far from the midline is it??
It gets up to about 1/3 of the entire dial.
Old 06-10-2013
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Re: Thermostat failing?

The gauge COULD be lying. How can you tell? I don't like to rely on the gauge if I can't trust it to be accurate. The gauge has no numbers on it, it is close to worthless to me LOL.


Step 1: See what the real engine operating temperature is.

a) Plug in a scanner into the port for reading codes. Get some data from the engine computer.
See what the coolant temperature is according to the computer.

b) Infrared temp gun verification of operating temp


After warmup:
Temp at highway speed should be close to the thermostat rating.
Temp sitting still should be anywhere between thermostat rating and fan turn-on temp.
Old 06-10-2013
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Re: Thermostat failing?

Another thing to see:


If you let it idle until the radiator fan kicks on, where is the gauge at?
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