Thread: VDO water temperature gauge - electrical or mechanical?

Back in the day(well, back in the day for me that is) I used to drive my dads old International C1300.
It had VDO gauges, and I remember the temp gauge used to be pretty quick responding.
Same with the oil pressure gauge too.
On hot days, it'd always respond quickly with temp changes climbing the Pentland Hills, a long climb up to Ballarat. Truck was always loaded over it's rated capacity for the Ballarat run, so of course that wouldn't have helped
Once on top of the climb tho, it'd settle back to 90-ish degrees.
I've never seen that in a VDO gauge again, and I liked it's more regular temp markings too.

But back on Zeros question .. I reckon it's always good to know actual temps.
Turn A/C on(assuming your Puma has A/C) in hot dry conditions and give it a hard time up a climb ... and you're sure to see a good temp rise from an OBD coolant display compared to what you'd normally see.

Just had a peek on ebay. translucent blue ELM327 bluetooth dongle less than $9 now! (I now feel ripped off, having spent $9.98 a few years ago )
Torque free is just that .. so it's not going to send you to the wall to give one a try.

I had two VDO mech thermometers in the 300Tdi in my old Defender and found them very resposive and accurate.

I have a k type thermocouple and digi thermometers and they agreed with the mech t/meter


And a FWIW, I work with IR thermometers too and don't trust them, I always reference a direct reading probe.