So, today I had to run a few errands. Normal driving in town. I went to Wal-Mart and dropped off a prescription and then went to a tire shop to have a tire patched. Drove in the parking lot, went in gave the guy the key. He moved it 15 yards into a bay and took the tire off, patched it, pulled the car up to the door and brought me the key. I payed him, got in my car and left. Got about 100 yards away and look at my temp gauge and its moving past the third mark and climbing to the red. I'm sitting at a stoplight and begging it to turn green. As soon as it does I take off to find a parking lot close by. As soon as I move, I mean less than 1 second, it drops down to normal. I get back to Wal-Mart and stop in the lot. Gauge starts climbing, switch on my fan, still climbing, rev it a bit and it drops. Weird? Turn off the car and go inside, come back out and my temp needle is pegged past the red, switch the car to koeo and it drops to normal temp. Idle the car a bit and it rises again, turn off the car and even with the key out of the ignition it rises past hot. Let it cool for a couple of hours, start it and it climbs. Drive it and it works normally, get home let it idle, works normally, what the heck?

No coolant system changes or anything. I had a problem with the wire being frayed and ir not moving before, but never pegging out.

I'm going to connect my laptop and see what the computer is reading when and if the gauge is acting funny. If one's hot and the other isn't it may be the temp gauge sending unit.

Thoughts?

 

Do the comparison with the scanner and report back.

 

OK, so my laptop battery is old so it doesn't hold a good charge. Anyway, The gauge went on up past the 2nd mark pretty quickly. The coolant temp shows on Datamaster shows to never have gone over 62*C, 144*F, before the computer cut off. By the time the computer cut off the temp gauge had settled down to normal.

Guess I'll replace the sending unit for the gauge. They aren't too expensive. Still odd.