Thermostat Valve life span

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-19 14:27:14 +0500 #1

Hi guys,

I dont know weather i put some good quality thermostat valve in my honda city 2000 or was it just ok but it lasted only a year exactly and it performed really well too, for almost a week now i was having a feel that car is running cold, temp needle barely raises, this morning when checked immediately after starting engine water was flowing in radiator and dang i declared the thermo valve to be stuck at open position, which when shown to mechanic confirmed the same and said "sab ji theek kar dia hai change karne ki zarorat nahi hai ab" and when checked some time ago same position, its open on chilling car.

i wanna ask what is average life of thermostat valve and for a good quality thermostat valve for my honda city 2000 what figure i may keep in mind

hash4u (hash4u) 2011-01-19 15:22:51 +0500 #2

i dont think its something to be counted in regular maintenance
as these last for several years
probably someone sold u a inferior quality one!

people buy second hand used from junk yards and even they work fine for years!

VCheng (VCheng) 2011-01-19 17:35:55 +0500 #3

Good quality thermostats last for several years, typically ten or more.

2c (2c) 2011-01-19 18:48:51 +0500 #4

thermostate valve is attached with a cylinderical piston which allows it to control the regulation of coolent in the radiator.
if their is no problem with the cylinder which contains a gel then it can last longer then 15 years.

tayyabbaig (tayyabbaig) 2011-01-19 18:53:37 +0500 #5

It has longer life, definitly not one year.

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-20 06:57:25 +0500 #6

@all
thanks for your valueable contribution,

i purchased themosatat valve during my lunch break from blue star G8, it says Honda japan made in japan and bla bla with part # K1H23,

its calibrated at 78 degree Centigrade, is same suitable for my honda city 2000 D13B engine? or generally whats NOT for D series or in genral?

Vaqas1 (Vaqas1) 2011-01-20 07:08:00 +0500 #7

78C or 82C should be fine.

Life span well they work for years and new ones are hard to find normaly people buy these from junk yards.

You are lucky they are stuck opened Imagine if its stuck closed hehe you might end up getting your car heat up. But 90% of the time they fail stuck open.

I saw a Liana with Stuck closed one and his car over heated as he didnt notice it.

BTW you can check if its working fine by boiling it. little before boiling or at 78C it will be fully open and close when water is cool down.

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-20 07:22:06 +0500 #8

stuck closed, same thing once spend shivers down my spine too, yes will do the boil test for sure, and will look for a thermometer after on my way home too.

imtishal (imtishal) 2011-01-20 08:06:50 +0500 #9

I bought it from gawalmandi. 'kiani autos' for Rs 750. 2 years ago,running fine without any cliche uptil now.

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-20 08:52:20 +0500 #10

@imtishal
I paid 800 there and waqar autos rwp was quoting 750 for it, kabuli from max torque was for 1000PKR and 550PKR at G8 markaz

saadzzz (saadzzz) 2011-01-20 09:13:16 +0500 #11

i have also honda city 2002 a day b4 car thermostat had been taken outby a mechanic as it was rusted badly ... and mechanic said may be its stuck sometimes which u cant c so he pulled out the thermostat . Now my car has no thermostat Guys should i re install it or not..... Mechanic said there is no need of thermo car will work fine..

Plzz reply

Vaqas1 (Vaqas1) 2011-01-20 09:19:28 +0500 #12

That MECHANIC is the bigest idiot you can ever come accross.

You must buy a new thermostate and install it ASAP.

All car engines needs a proper temp to work with normaly its 82c.

A car with no thermostate will burn more fuel/ will run rough at times/ reduced engine life.

Whatever is installed in the car there is a reason why its there. I mean waisa tu gari oil change ka baghair bhi chalti rahi gee but thatt dosent mean app oil change na karwao.

Ab tum lagwana jao ge tu he might give you other lame excuses jaisa sir fan auto per haii and blah blah. Dont listen to these.

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-20 09:21:11 +0500 #13

yeah, thats because our mechanics are space rocket engineers and people who desined the car are stupid in their view, have it installed ASAP in short

cracked (cracked) 2011-01-20 09:49:51 +0500 #14

thermostat live as long as the engine itself..
ppl strt usin water in te engine n thts where the problems begine...
water causes rust n then t-stat myt get stuck open or close..better use coolant ,it do costs some dough but a peacefull mind afterwards!
ive seen many cars,specially taxi's running still DIRECT FANS in this cold weather,they r literally killin their engine coldly:p

asad1 (Asaad Azeem Baig) 2011-01-20 12:43:39 +0500 #15

use coolant ur car thermostat valve will last longer

saadzzz (saadzzz) 2011-01-20 13:18:45 +0500 #16

thankkksss alot ppl....

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-20 13:45:15 +0500 #17

ok guys time for update

couldn't get hold of lab thermometer but did a boiling water test on new valve and it opened and closed smoothly.

rermoved the old one and installed the new one and ran engine and temp needle behave as it should be bringing engine to its NOT and when reved hard fans kicked in too which in previous case didnt for about a week now, so its a good news.

when inspected the old i came to know that its rubber seal kinda shrinked and movement is also not smooth but that might be overcome by spring but main cause was shrinking of the rubber seal itself.

its like more than a year that i own this car and i always used caltex coolant and this thermostat valve was installed when there was coolant in the engine, in short the valve removed didn't have any experience of plain water but it did happen to me.

anyways i am satisfied with my car's performance doing 0Km/h lets hope all goes well in the moring her doing like 85km/h

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-21 13:43:43 +0500 #18

Update:

and results were as expected, new thermostat valve performed nicely bringing car to to its operating temp in run, temp needle was steady at around 45% of guage, less vibration from engine and a warm cabin too everything went fine for me with the change.

mahmood (mahmood) 2011-01-23 05:28:46 +0500 #19

unless i do something like folowing any DIY from my side is not complete so i now declare this DIY to be complete sucess:D

plz refer to second pic, i draw a line only to highlight that smaller side of the center pin ( metallic pin on top side in image ) is misaligned, it does not show much bended here but in real its bend is much more clear, i wonder how this happened during normal operations

cracked (cracked) 2011-01-23 07:18:23 +0500 #20

how much the t-stat costed u?