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Login to post Forums » Grassroots Motorsports » No more coolant gauge

Feb. 27, 2009 5:36 p.m. fastbmw New Reader

The new '10 Mazda3 has no coolant gauge. I guess they only have a warning light when the car overheats.

I'm kinda disappointed in newer cars deleting gauges and making everything warning lights. The coolant gauge on my wife's 00 Celica GT-S isn't really a coolant gauge either, if you look carefully It only has 4 positions, cold, two normal and one at max temp. Personally I find the coolant gauge very important on keeping tabs on how the engine is currently running. I guess they have to "dumb-down" cars for the everyperson.
Feb. 27, 2009 5:49 p.m. huggybear626 None

We just had two mazda 3s delivered at my dealer today. The light will start flashing at 252 degrees then come on solid at 257. A little high i think.
Feb. 27, 2009 5:55 p.m. ArtOfRuin HalfDork

One of the things I like about my RX-7 is that it has gauges with measurements on them for voltage and oil pressure in addition to the water temp. gauge and idiot lights. They probably aren't as accurate as a new aftermarket gauge, but they give me a much better indication of the engine's health than a CEL. All of this gauge deletion seems like a way for stealerships to force car owners back to their service bays instead of attempting to diagnose/fix the problem themselves, for better or worse.
Feb. 27, 2009 5:58 p.m. pigeon Reader

Coolant "gauges" haven't been gauges for a long time, they're generally idiot lights that move from cold to a fixed position at normal to in the red at a certain temperature.
Feb. 27, 2009 6:03 p.m. aircooled Dork

Coolent smoolent, that car does 260!!!!!

and yes, I see it is metric. (base 10 is cool)
Feb. 27, 2009 6:19 p.m. mad_machine SuperDork

how soon till we go back to the old vw way of only a speedo? and even that will probably disappear once GPS becomes mandatory.. just a yellow light for two slow, green for speedlimit, and red for too fast.
Feb. 27, 2009 6:30 p.m. carzan New Reader

mad_machine wrote:

how soon till we go back to the old vw way of only a speedo? and even that will probably disappear once GPS becomes mandatory.. just a yellow light for two slow, green for speedlimit, and red for too fast.

You won't have any need for the lights either, since you won't be able to control the speed anyway.
Feb. 27, 2009 7:20 p.m. Dr. Hess SuperDork

Personally, I like an idiot light for the coolant. I would like a guage too, but if I could only have one, I'd pick an idiot light. I've had a vehicle or two with a temp guage and no light overheat. You start smelling something, look at the guage and have an Oh E36 M3 moment. A light that came on earlier would be prefereable.

My last event was with the 20v AE92. My heater hose broke. I started smelling something, looked at the guage, went Oh E36 M3, killed the ignition and coasted over to the side of the road. I narrowly missed blowing my new used motor. I had my wife bring me a couple gallons of water, bent a hose and connected it to the heater ports and drove home.
Feb. 27, 2009 7:51 p.m. noisycricket Reader

huggybear626 wrote:

We just had two mazda 3s delivered at my dealer today. The light will start flashing at 252 degrees then come on solid at 257. A little high i think.

Some cars (even 10+ years ago) didn't even kick on the fans until 235 degrees or so.

The hotter the engine, the more efficient it is.
Feb. 27, 2009 9:14 p.m. P71 Dork

noisycricket wrote:

The hotter the engine, the more efficient it is.

Correction. The cooler the engine (to a point), the more efficient it is (in terms of power). Hotter engines just have better emissions, and who cares about that?
Feb. 27, 2009 9:32 p.m. noisycricket Reader

The hotter the engine, the less the internal temp differential is, so less heat is transferred to the cooling system. Less energy wasted in the cooling system means more energy pushing the car.

Of course, it isn't nearly that simple, but somewhere I was reading that some NASCAR teams were finding better power at 240deg coolant temps... They probably have less problems with charge air heating than those of us not driving 150+ have, though.

Hotter coolant means you can have a smaller radiator for the same heat rejection, too.
Feb. 27, 2009 11:16 p.m. MrJoshua SuperDork

Dr. Hess wrote:

Personally, I like an idiot light for the coolant. I would like a guage too, but if I could only have one, I'd pick an idiot light. I've had a vehicle or two with a temp guage and no light overheat. You start smelling something, look at the guage and have an Oh E36 M3 moment. A light that came on earlier would be prefereable.

My last event was with the 20v AE92. My heater hose broke. I started smelling something, looked at the guage, went Oh E36 M3, killed the ignition and coasted over to the side of the road. I narrowly missed blowing my new used motor. I had my wife bring me a couple gallons of water, bent a hose and connected it to the heater ports and drove home.

Have you noticed we all have a story of "Luckily I noticed/stopped just in time to save my motor". After talking to a buddy with a 240sx who's just in time involved melting the plug wires I think just in time isn't quite as early as we think it is.
Feb. 28, 2009 4:45 a.m. mad_machine SuperDork

I remember years ago my father had an 89 Mercury Grand Marquis. Great car... I took it to get some paint for my first fiat spider and on the way, the little hose next to the distributer on the 5.0 split. and was slowly leaking coolant

Was the first (and only) time that car spun the wheels leaving a toll booth. Running hot it made a LOT more power.
Feb. 28, 2009 7:09 a.m. ignorant SuperDork

P71 wrote:

Hotter engines just have better emissions, and who cares about that?

not entirely true. Hotter diesel engines produce more N0x and can also produce more PM blah blah blah....

back on topic most temp gauges are "damped" and therefore only move with very very big temperature swings..
Feb. 28, 2009 10:25 a.m. sachilles Reader

I have a 08 impreza for a company car. No coolant gauge. Has a blue coolant light to let you know the car hasn't warmed up yet. When it turns off the car is in the normal range. Turns red if it is hot.

I'm obsessed it cooling. I think it all started with owning a range rover. I notice every little difference on the coolant gauge in all my cars.

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