Thread: Is there a way to test you coolant alarm

I dont know of a way of testing the switch, maybe disconect it might work.
How there is a increasing amount of people doing engine damage is wierd because on my D3 it has a temp gauge in the dash.

Originally Posted by connock

I dont know of a way of testing the switch, maybe disconect it might work.
How there is a increasing amount of people doing engine damage is wierd because on my D3 it has a temp gauge in the dash.

There plenty of D1 & D2 owners who thought the same thing only to find out that once the guage moves its all but to late. From what I got told today it seems as tho the D3 may be the same.

We towed our camper over 5000ks recently in temps upto low 40s and hawkeye told me that the coolant temp rose 7 degrees but my guage never moved , so how much does the guage really tell.

Cheers Ean

Originally Posted by Ean Austral

There plenty of D1 & D2 owners who thought the same thing only to find out that once the guage moves its all but to late. From what I got told today it seems as tho the D3 may be the same.

We towed our camper over 5000ks recently in temps upto low 40s and hawkeye told me that the coolant temp rose 7 degrees but my guage never moved , so how much does the guage really tell.

Cheers Ean

The story you've been told doesn't seem to gel with the way the fault system works. I can attest to the behaviour of the D3 when it overheats from personal experience. When the gauge starts to rise the car will drive normally until a small red warning light above the temp gauge activates. At this point the car will go into limp mode, for precisely the reason of protecting the engine. And it's pretty effective at doing that too. You have to wait quite a while before the car will commence again, and too many attempts to drive without rectifying the fault will see the car stay in limp mode permanently.

Cheers,

Gordon

Originally Posted by Ean Austral

There plenty of D1 & D2 owners who thought the same thing only to find out that once the guage moves its all but to late. From what I got told today it seems as tho the D3 may be the same.


We towed our camper over 5000ks recently in temps upto low 40s and hawkeye told me that the coolant temp rose 7 degrees but my guage never moved , so how much does the guage really tell.

Cheers Ean

Yes now you say it the D1s and D2s were like this, I havnt heard it though for the D3. But I have noticed that if Im driving in +40 Deg. the needle sits about half a needle higher, so thourght they had fixed the problem.

Originally Posted by gghaggis

The story you've been told doesn't seem to gel with the way the fault system works. I can attest to the behaviour of the D3 when it overheats from personal experience. When the gauge starts to rise the car will drive normally until a small red warning light above the temp gauge activates. At this point the car will go into limp mode, for precisely the reason of protecting the engine. And it's pretty effective at doing that too. You have to wait quite a while before the car will commence again, and too many attempts to drive without rectifying the fault will see the car stay in limp mode permanently.

Cheers,

Gordon

Thanks Gordon,

Can you tell me if the same thing happens if say you split a hose or in this case a housing and the water level empties completely or partially.

I have never seen the low coolant level warning , admittedly I have never topped the system up so dont expect to, but just interested if anyone has tried to test it thats all.

Cheers Ean

The red light/limp mode will trigger under any circumstances that allow the temperature sensor to read an abnormally high reading. It's not a magic wand, and obviously works better when there is water in the system, but it would still react to the increase in block temperature.

Cheers,

Gordon

For goodness sake...

It's NOT a problem...

Normalised gauges are common now.

It stops panic when the gauge goes to 3/4 and people start freaking out!

Normalised gauges present in a set range as 1 position and move once the normal range is exceeded.

New Toyota, Nissan etc all have the same.

Catastrophic coolant dumps won't register on ANY temp gauge, they don't work when not immersed.

It's like people who see 105°c and panic - in a pressurized system that's no issue.

Falcon 6cyl often run over 115°c working hard on a 40°+ day but the gauge barely registers it...

Originally Posted by Tombie

For goodness sake...

It's NOT a problem...

Normalised gauges are common now.

It stops panic when the gauge goes to 3/4 and people start freaking out!

Normalised gauges present in a set range as 1 position and move once the normal range is exceeded.

New Toyota, Nissan etc all have the same.

Catastrophic coolant dumps won't register on ANY temp gauge, they don't work when not immersed.

It's like people who see 105°c and panic - in a pressurized system that's no issue.

Falcon 6cyl often run over 115°c working hard on a 40°+ day but the gauge barely registers it...

You have miss took my question tombie, I never said they didnt work, im just trying to work out if the D3 does have a better system in reguards to a coolant loss than those before it, and if the system needs to be checked every so often.
I fully understand how normalised guages work.

Gordon has answered my question with first hand expierence, thats good enough for me.

Cheers Ean