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I have a 1996 chevy k1500 with a vortec 350 in it. I have a scan gauge 2 on it that can tell me the water temperature gauge as well as a gauge in my dash. the problem is my scan gauge says it stays around 182F in the winter and up to 192 or so on a hot summer day. my gauge in my dash says that it only gets to like 140. so which one should i lean towards? i believe it has a 195 thermostat and it never seems to over heat but the heater works amazingly so its getting up to heat. do i need to get a new temperature sensor and thermostat? i dont know when the last time it had a new thermostat in it and they are both right next to each other.
what ar eyour thoughts? thanks
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Don’t fix if it ain’t brok. Why worry? Scangauge does not show temp off temp sensor. It only reads what is provided by ECM data stream.
Btw, if you have a decent phone, get Torque app and OBD2 Bt adapter. You’ll have pages of ECM info. MUCH better than SG and grand total is about $20.
Plus, you can set phone as HUD. Onto windshield. Uber cool.
But reason I mentioned this, Toque e.g gives me 2 battery voltage, one off battery and one off ECM. Difference is about 2 V. Do I freak out? Hell no. Starts, goes, makes no noises – Don’t fix if it ain’t brok.if it aint giving you problems then i wouldnt worry about it. if your heat is good and it isnt over heating no reason to be concerned, the gauge just might read low. sometimes vehicles have their own personality that you learn about while owning them, im sure you will notice if that gauge jumps up in temp from where it usually sits, then it would be a cause for concern
About all you can expect from the dash gauge is that it will hopefully show hot if the engine overheats. If you are really interested you can research the sender resistances for various temperatures and substitute known value resistors and see what the gauge reads. In the process you will learn how to calculate parallel resistance since you will probably have to combine several resistors in parallel to achieve the values listed in the service manual.
Aftermarket gauge readings can vary a great deal. Mainly depending on how they’re hooked up. If they’re not getting the correct voltage, they won’t read correctly. That said, if you have good heat, and it’s not overheating, I’d say you’re probably fine. I wouldn’t go looking for problems if they’re aren’t any.
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