Pathmaker0912

I live in fort collins and drive to centennial everyday for school, I only go to Gunnison for elk hunting

Went ahead and replaced the sensors (both the temperature sensor and sender for the gauge) seems to run better with the new sensor and the gauge went up a little. Yes I did a 50/50 mix of Prestone coolant and water. I would experiment with different ratios but I live in Colorado and use this car for my 2 hour everyday drive plus for things such as elk hunting up in Gunnison....way too much temperature fluctuation. Has anyone ever seen the covers that go over the grill? (http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=745995) My buddy has one one his Ford Excursion and it seems to heat up a hell of a lot faster, especially up in the mountains after not having the diesel block heater plugged in...

I have to drive down to Centennial in a couple of hours so I will check the temperature then... I doubt that a lot of gunk came out of the tstat, the car has had regular coolant flushes and its never been effected like it has this time, also the flush was almost spotless when I disposed of it. Just some brown gunk... Ill check back again tonight and let you know the temp. I had. Thanks for your help.

Oh wow thats a lot lower than any other vehicle I have.. I plan on changing the thermostat in a few weeks when I do my timing belt, tensioner and water belt...my heat is good, I just recalled seeing a TSB regarding tough cold weather starts due to the CTS/S.. is there any reason you can think that the coolant flush would cause that drastic of a change in my temperatures? As stated before I was reading halfway on the gauge and now its 50% of that..

Hey guys, so I've had this problem for a while now where my coolant gauge never gets above ~1/4 of the way up... which is weird because before I did a coolant flush it would settle at ~1/2 up. I figured the cold winter was to blame but I've been looking into it more and all my radiator hoses are hot and everything feels as though it is normal operationg temp (~210 F) I am thinking that it could possibly be my Coolant Temperature Sensor/Sender (there are 2 on my WD21, one for the gauge and one for the ECU) because of my poor cold morning starts and relatively bad gas mileage, but Im not sure what could have caused a simple thermo-resistor to fail, possibly the Prestone coolant flush solution I used? Ive considered the thermostat but I drive 90 miles from Fort Collins to Centennial for school everyday so I feel like it should at least warm up more than that... any help?