Can fully bottom grill block in 60F weather.

Thermostat arrived. Still planning to install Friday night. But these last 2 morning, it's been about 48F. My heater seems to be working now or something. Maybe it's just warmer? So I press auto and set the temp to 80-high. It goes to floor vent, fresh air, fan 0-1 bar. However if I put it on face or face and feet, it turns the blower on about 5 bars. In about 5 minutes it starts blowing warm air, which that part is normal.

I thought normally no mater what vent I selected, it wouldn't turn the blower on until the engine was warm enough. When on auto. I haven't had my scangauge 2 plugged in for about a week now, so I have no idea what temp it was. I had previously been using face and feet, but it seems like face warms up so much more? Idk, I'm not explaining it the best and it doesn't make sense to me right now.

I still plan to change it, because even when it's 90F out, I think my coolant temp barely hits 160-170F on my 20min~ 7 mile drive to work. Going to either figure out it's normal or something was wrong with it. As far as I know, it's the original.

 

Looks like it's probably been stuck open since 2020 in the least. Only did a short drive. But it seems like night and day. I took out my grill block because I had to drive to Autozone to get more coolant. 61F outside. Got to 160F in a couple minutes. Seems to be holding that to 180F pretty easily now. Just driving a tiny bit.

Nearly got taken out on my way home from Autozone. Was doing about 45mph in a 50 and someone pulled out in front of me. ABS didn't seem right. Like it went off but I thought I barely braked and didn't feel any sliding.

New and old thermostat look quite different. The old is the metal piece is deeper. The coil also looked looser. Not sure if it slides on that black plastic or what. On the new one, I could see daylight through the little coolant hose part. Not on the old one. Gasket stuck to the engine. Had to scrape off garbage with a razor blade. Carefully. Including my trip to and from Autozone, took me about 2 hours. Getting both clamps back on was supper difficult.

 

Car way ahead of me didn't have any lights on. What I was talking about after "Nice" for the truck switching lanes late. 196F water temp. The highest I seen. If you watched it on repeat, when I brake, I guess I did brake pretty hard? Dashcam has been acting up with wanting to format the SD card, so I wasn't sure if it was caught.

 

I'm hoping for a slight MPG boost as well.

I'm not a fan of DRLs. They should have never been "invented". Should have just regulated marker/parking/driving lights.

It seems my thermostat was stuck open and has been for years. Every time it got 60F or less, I would start grill blocking the bottom grill. Eventually to 100%. The upper grill, I leave alone. The heat would absolutely struggle and kill mpg from the engine being constantly on. I'd even drive in B mode, to keep the engine on more, for the heat. But that killed MPG even more.

Seem when in Auto air conditioning mode, it will turn on the heat around 103F engine coolant temp. It will blow warm at 130F but around 190 is when it blows hot.