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I recently have been going a little more in depth in the service records that came with the purchase of my SC300. Have owned it for about 2 months.
I found out that the gauge cluster was serviced about 5 years ago and as we all know the LEDs go on our clusters.
Anywho I noticed that my temp gauge sits directly at halfway - dead center once everything gets warmed up. Being the OCD car owner that I am this was a little concerning to me. I am used to temp being just a tad below 1/2 mark so I started looking for some issues. My first thought would be coolant is probably bad. Check coolant - find the green stuff. Flush replace with toyota red. Burp system. Drive a few days - same dead center at 1/2 mark.
Check fan clutch and fan can be stopped pretty easily. 179k miles and original fan clutch. Replace that. Same dead center halfway point.
At this point I feel like I am being overprotective, but still my next step is starting to think of getting a second temp gauge or testing temp sensor/sender....
Well just today I started looking at the service records and notice that the cluster has been serviced 2 times. I start having this hunch that the needle was placed back in cluster incorrectly.
Found that when the car is OFF the Needle does not "rest" on the little needle stop. It actually sits across the C. Normally it should rest on the stop in my mind.
Question is - Does everyone elses temp needle "rest" on the little stop????
It should drop all the way down to C. On both of my SCs, full operating temp is just a whisker over the 2nd tick, or 40%.
Is it even possible to put these needles on in the wrong position? They are basically a fixed position, having to fit over the pos/neg pins. Maybe the gauge itself is bad, in which case you might want to contact Tanin about your options.
It should drop all the way down to C. On both of my SCs, full operating temp is just a whisker over the 2nd tick, or 40%.
Is it even possible to put these needles on in the wrong position? They are basically a fixed position, having to fit over the pos/neg pins. Maybe the gauge itself is bad, in which case you might want to contact Tanin about your options.
Thanks for the response t2d2.
On Tanins site which I checked out before posting you are supposed to insert the needle when the car gets to operating temp. From the looks of the video theres a lot of room for you to set the needle almost anywhere.
That part of the video doesn't show how the needles go on, though. There's only one way to situate them, as far as I know. Now, it might be that the gauges hold position, so if you pivot them they'll be out of calibration. I don't care to experiment with that to find out.
It would be so much easier if all gauges were made to self-zero.
I've been kind of going through something similar too.
I recently had my guages serviced by Tanin, and since I've had it back the gauge cluster reads slightly warm. I did the same thing, changed coolant, even though my coolant was only a year old and Toyota Red, got new Toyota Red, and burped the system, got a new coolant temp sensor, new engine thermostat, and new engine fan clutch and fan blades, and changed the oil and it's still slightly warm. I also am wondering if it may be the gauge cluster, but I don't really know what to do from here?
Gauge cluster random question
