John said:
professionally cleaned. You could also try running the car without the
thermostat, which you can do safely.
Yes, in an emergency or as a diagnostic tool.
Otherwise, running without the t-stat may cause more problems than it
solves. Among them, flow rate thru the cooling system's calibrated based
on having the restriction of the t-stat. I live in a rather warm part of
SoCal where summer temps run over 100 def F for quite some time. I can't
tell you how many people I know who've tried this and found their
engines didn't stop overheating when the problem was somewhere else in
the system.
Then there's the issue of how will the engine run at a temp other than
what the emissions system's calibrated for. I once thought I was smarter
than the engineers and put a lower temp t-stat in one of my vehicles for
"summer" use (an ol' timers' practice for who knows how long?) Problem
was the ol' timers' vehicles weren't computerized and working off a
variety of temperature parameters. MY vehicle ran terribly at the lower
temp--the 'puter always thought it was cold and adjusted everything
rich. Other problems may occur, too.
So I'd leave the running without a t-stat to being a diagnostic tool or
an emergency.
Rick
