Jayhawk1525
Probationary Member
- Messages
- 4
- Location
- Kansas
My 2008 H3 3.7 (93,000 miles) have been dealing with the A/C Off message for about a year. At first, the issue was intermittent and was more of a nuisance than a disaster. If I ever needed to have the A/C on right away, I just disconnected the PCM-B fuse and plugged it back in. Most of the time, the message came and A/C shut off, only to come back on again by itself after ~10 minutes of driving. It just recently started to have the issue every single day, so I figured something got worse over the year. Finally took it to my local mechanic and had them replace the thermostat as that's what I read as the first thing to try with my issue. I will say that when I didn't have the A/C Off message previously, my temp gauge in the dash read at slightly below 1/2 and sometimes even closer to 1/4. Thought that was odd as well so just paid the $260 to have them replace the thermostat. I bought the ECT sensor ($16 on Amazon) and plan to swap that out myself since it's a bit easier to get to.
Got the car back today and noticed that my temperature gauge now reads fairly high. Drove for about 8 minutes today and pulled into a Drive-Thru and sat for ~5 minutes. I noticed that my temperature gauge at idle was now almost to 3/4. Any ideas or anyone else have the same issue after a thermostat replacement? I know that the gauge should not be relied on for actual temperature readings, but I would expect it to be somewhat accurate, maybe! I've also heard/seen multiple places that H3s tend to run a bit hotter. Not sure if there's truth behind that.
I did call the shop back and spoke with the mechanic that actually worked on the car. He said that he noticed the temperature reading higher on the gauge as well and hooked it up to their computer to see the actual temp and everything checked out just fine. He says that with this new thermostat, the temperature reading will always be higher now but it isn't something I should worry about. He also said that I shouldn't need to replace the ECT sensor. I was planning on doing that anyways. Do those parts somewhat go hand-in-hand? In other words, would it be better to have a brand new thermostat as well as a brand new ECT sensor? I kind of thought so. Any similar stories/suggestions would be great. Mechanic did say that the thermostat housing was leaking and that was probably causing the faulty P0128 code. Anyways, I will hook up my OBDII scanner later and see if I can get a temperature reading. Is it true that the H3s should run 190-220 degrees normally? What temperature should I expect?
Got the car back today and noticed that my temperature gauge now reads fairly high. Drove for about 8 minutes today and pulled into a Drive-Thru and sat for ~5 minutes. I noticed that my temperature gauge at idle was now almost to 3/4. Any ideas or anyone else have the same issue after a thermostat replacement? I know that the gauge should not be relied on for actual temperature readings, but I would expect it to be somewhat accurate, maybe! I've also heard/seen multiple places that H3s tend to run a bit hotter. Not sure if there's truth behind that.
I did call the shop back and spoke with the mechanic that actually worked on the car. He said that he noticed the temperature reading higher on the gauge as well and hooked it up to their computer to see the actual temp and everything checked out just fine. He says that with this new thermostat, the temperature reading will always be higher now but it isn't something I should worry about. He also said that I shouldn't need to replace the ECT sensor. I was planning on doing that anyways. Do those parts somewhat go hand-in-hand? In other words, would it be better to have a brand new thermostat as well as a brand new ECT sensor? I kind of thought so. Any similar stories/suggestions would be great. Mechanic did say that the thermostat housing was leaking and that was probably causing the faulty P0128 code. Anyways, I will hook up my OBDII scanner later and see if I can get a temperature reading. Is it true that the H3s should run 190-220 degrees normally? What temperature should I expect?