Temperature Gauge?

I hate to make a thread about this but I was unable to find anything online specific to our cars.

Today I noticed that my temperature gauge's needle was in the middle...is this normal? I've never paid any mind to it in the past. I'm concerned because I'm thinking that it's supposed to be on the first bar.

Thanks folks!

 

Mine has always run slightly left of center.

 

Mine gets to the middle and stops once it hits operating temp with the 3.5L

 

Pretty sure normal operating temp in the middle. That's what mine has always gotten up to. I consider anything under the first bar 'warming up' temps lol.

 

Yup, every vehicle ive owned it always hit center. Normal temperature operation.

 

Nice, thanks everyone. My heater is only blowing cold air and I thought it might've had something to do with the temperature.

 

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My heater doesn’t work until it at least makes it past the first mark on the left, I let my truck run for at least 15 minutes in the morning because I refuse to get in a cold truck.

 

Not sure how cold it is where you are, but even at 50 degrees in California it takes a few minutes to warm up.

 

I was driving the truck for at least 45 minutes and the heater never kicked in

 

You can take your 50’s and shove them. That’s still shorts and t shirt weather. It was -11 a few days ago. I’m just glad I’m not in North Dakota any more.

 

Haha, hey now im not bragging, just providing an example. Ill keep my shorts weather thank you very much!

 

Yea that’s definitely a problem. Anything to the right of the temp gauge marks should produce heat. Has the problem persisted? Also what temp was it out side?

 

I love Cali, just can’t deal with the shear number of people and politics. I definitely want to come visit again, I’ve only been once. Plus you really can’t beat the weather.

 

It's been two days and still the same problem. Coolant level is good. It's about 30 degrees here in New England

 

I wouldn't mind making this a place to "visit."

 

You're fine.

But here's the deal. It's a faux gauge. So an idiot light with a needle. If it's in certain temp 'boundries', the needle points to specific places on the gauge. So, middle means it's in the normal operating range, you just don't know if it's on the high or low end, and its a somewhat broad range.

If you really want to know what's happening, get a ScanGuage or UltraGauge and hook it up.

For your heater for example. I have everything off, including the blower. When the ScanGauge shows the coolant at about 130* I go ahead and turn on the heat and/or defrost. Plenty warm at the nozzle, and of course temp continues to rise. System set on recirc to avoid cold outside air.

If you run the blower prematurely, it acts as a 2nd radiator slowing the coolant warming process. Run outside air and that effect is compounded.

The real plus of the aftermarket gauge set is monitoring of transmission temps if you have an auto and either tow or offroad. Of course it will monitor many other operational parameters and do lots of other useful things too, including reading CELs and resetting them when that day comes.

 

I would suggest a dealer visit if your truck has reached normal temp with the needle somewhere just to the left of center and still no heat.

 

I think the purpose of the Electric Heating Element in our Trucks is to assist the process until the coolant temp gets up to normal. Someone had the specs listed on here before and I think it deactivated at something like 110 or 130.

 

Yea, I keep forgetting you guys have that.

Sounds like it's either not working or isn't too effective in this case? It was 30 here this morning and I had nice heat in 1/2 a mile.

I don't even have 6 lugnuts, much less a booster.

 

Thermostat ???