What thermostat do you recommend to replace it?

 

https://www.cruzetalk.com/posts/3093705/

 

For those of you that don't know how to change the guts of the thermostat and are like me and couldn't find anything about how to do it online, here's how you do it. First remove the spring and spring perch from the thermostats. You simply push the perch in and turn it clockwise until it clears the stops in the housing. Then pull the piece with the thermostat valve it's self off. Then hold the housing by the hose nipple and pull the past piece out. There are two pins for the electric part on this piece careful not to bend them. Then swap those pieces then reassemble in reverse order. That's all there is to it. Hope this helps.

 

I used a large socket to push in on the perch. That made it easier and safer to turn the sharp metal piece.

 

I did the swap with 2 doorman parts and then realized I had a good part left over from the leftover parts and was thinking of returning it. Then also realized i bet someone already did that and i just replaced a 212 thermostat with another 212 thermostat. And the more this is known about the more that parts are going to be mixed up from coming out off the returns department. Will have to see how it works out.

 

Do you know of a way to do this to the 2017 model cruze...I've done this job successfully on a 2012 and it's working flawlessly but the 2017 is all different?

 

The 2nd gen Cruze already has a lower temperature thermostat.

 

Has anyone done or knows how to do a thermostat mod like cruise cruze listed for a 2017 2nd Gen cruze?

 

I'm thinking about doing the lower temp thermostat swap on mine and/or my brother's 2014 eco cruze. Maybe this was mentioned before in the 19 pages (too many to look through) but I noticed on amazon that the motorad t-46 cap was unavailable but there's two acdelco 15 psi options, the RC85 and RC98. Curious if anyone knows if either of those work/fit on the gen1 cruze?

 

I shall say this only once: You don't need a lower 'Hail, Mary' Cooling System overpressure valve to operate at a lower coolant temp!
The cap is only useful when the coolant overheats significantly, to protect the weakest hose from bursting sooner than later, that's all.
You can source that latter OR mod the current 20PSI cup into a lower setting (as I've done with mine).

 

Nj

 

Yep too far for me. Im in IL

 

Hey borther can u sell me a thermostat swapped? U might have more lucky finding the parts. Thanks in advance

 

Hey brother u willing to do the swap for me? Willing to pay. Cant find the parts to do it

 

28290034 and 25200456 are the oem numbers to do this now. Shop around as the dealer can be a bit on the pricy side for them.

 

My take on the thermostat swap.

I have about 1000 miles on the lower temp thermostat and no problems. It rarely gets above 180F unless sitting in traffic. Highest I have seen it so far was 209F in traffic and about 80 degrees outside.

The only downside for me is that my P0420 code (from my aftermarket cat) comes back after only 5 warm-ups like clockwork. I used to get between 9 & 12 warm-ups before needing to reset it. It’s not a huge deal because I keep my OBD reader plugged in all the time. It’s just a small annoyance.

 

my 14 Cruze manual stays between 160 and 183. Only downside I have is how long it takes to get heat in the car during the winter. Not having coolant leaks is worth the trade off of lower cabin heat

 

App: https://www.carscanner.info/ I think it was $8 for the lifetime paid version. Dongle: Veepeak OBDCheck BLE+ Bluetooth OBD II Scanner Wireless Car Diagnostic Scan Tool Check Engine Code Reader for iOS & Android https://a.co/d/fpcqvmX

 

 

Yes, a few months left of the 5 year powertrain warranty.

It has a 20psi coolant reservoir cap. I just ordered a 15psi one after reading this thread.

I smell burning coolant once in a while, and lose a tiny bit (100 mL every few weeks). It did have an oil cooler and valve cover replaced under warranty this year that were leaking oil. That’s why I am wondering if extra heat and pressure contributed to those or any future problems.

 

If that is the only thing you do, you will just lose more coolant over time as the tank will release sooner.

 

I probably wouldn't...ideal is 212f from what I've read. Seems you're right there. What's the pressure rating on your purge tank cap? Mine was 20psi, now is 15psi with the 176* thermostat.

I did have a few leaks from the higher pressure, reseating the hose clamps and lowering the pressure seemed to help. And even with the 176* thermostat I've still had temps above 200, which is fine, again 212 is ideal for emissions.

Unless you're having cooling system issues, I wouldn't change it. Others may disagree. Is your 2020 Trax still under warranty?

Mine was a 2014 Cruze lt.

Just my .02 cents. Good luck.

 

My thermostat says it opens between 217F and 221f. Would you look for a replacement if this was your setup?

From a 45 minute drive, the highest coolant temp it got was 216F =102C. Steady state was around 203F=95C.

Oil temp up to 223F=106C.
This is a 2020 Trax.

 

My thermostat says it opens between 217F and 221f. Would you look for a replacement if this was your setup?

From a 45 minute drive, the highest coolant temp it got was 216F =102C. Steady state was around 203F=95C.

Oil temp up to 223F=106C.
This is a 2020 Trax.

Hi Jedna,
If you don't mind me asking what nice APP and OBD-II dongle are you using?
Very nice 1st graphic!
Thank you.

 

interesting thanks for responses, i cant remember if i used the supplied gasket or oem i think i purchased a different brand when i swapped transmissions last october lol

 

yes they looked different.
The one on the left is the more stable of the 2. Also I dont know if they fixed it but I highly recommend not using the gasket they supply.
instead use Felpro seal 35981.
I dont know how you control what thermostat you would get.

It might be hard to tell in the picture but one is just polished on the left while the other has a machined mating surface. Once I had the felpro gasket neither leaked prior to that they both lasted 2 days before leaking.

 

I recently swapped to the zzp 206 in both my car and my daughters car. They were obviously made by 2 different manufacturers. So my daughters car has wide fluctuations. Yet my car is relatively stable. so yes and no.

 

Do they have marks on them we can identify the less troublesome one?
Too bad no pics where differences would be apparent or did you take some?

 

do any of you guys with lower temp thermostats see the temp gauge fluctuate when driving at higher speeds? mine does i have the zzp thermostat installed

 

Sure

Out of curiosity I tried the zzp on me and my daughters cruzes. ZZP apparently has 2 sources of them and the were considerably different looking. The one I put in my car is rock steady and great. My daughters fluctuated a bunch and slowly just started opening later and later every time I talked to her. So I switched her back to the 176 thermostat this post is about. My zzp sets almost rock steady at 208.

 

I just did this change to my car today and, for what it's worth, the 176* thermostat wasn't compatible with the aluminum housing upgrade I have. I used my old housing and so far so good.

 

I FIXED it ! I think I may have won the war with the Cruze cooling system ! 2013 Cruze 1.4 T

Part 1 and Part 2

Part 1.
This has been my son's daily driver for several years. It developed the dreaded RAGING High Speed Fan all the time syndrome months/years ago and he has just lived with it that way.
But then recently, ok several months ago, it started to overheat, boil over , spike the temp gauge to full hot, and warning lights, etc, all of it.

First, Part 1. I pulled the radiator fan assembly, which was a rediculous mess that took forever, and changed the electric fan speed control resistor pack, AND the burnt up plug that wired into the electric harness, too . ( P.S. The colors of the wires on the Amazon plug were exactly opposite wrong, so be sure to mark your wires first + - etc, and don't just blindly believe they wired your new plug correctly. )

After thinking I was a genius, and putting it all back togather , the results were basically the same , Raging Full Speed Fan. UNLESS...

Turn the car off. Disconnect BOTH battery cables . And when they are both loose, up in the sky, not touching the battery at all, get a clippy wire and CONNECT the two battery cables. It was scary and I thought it might blow up, but how could it? So, ok, I did that, to re-set zero the computer .

It worked, sort of. I started it cold and NO fan . ! Warmed it up a little, drove a bit , no fan,
more warm up until almost straight down temp gauge, then Full speed RAGE fan.

Turn car off, wait a while. Turn car back on cold the next day, and it starts cold with Full Speed RAGE fan. This went on for several months in my spare time.

Then I got an OBD 2 scanner . I decided to be a Big Boy, and be all grown up. I got a good one, not the cheap entry level. After learning some , and digging around in the screens and settings, I figured out how to check fan speeds, and that all seemed to be working ok.

I took out and checked each ( ALL ) the three fuses and five relays and checked them all, good.

So, it MUST be the sensors, right ? Of course, I was a genius again.

I changed the engine sensor , over on the driver side at the big crazy plastic diverter assembly, and changed the sensor ON the radiator way down on the passenger side, too. After careful reading, I learned that the sensor that is actually ON the thermostat is just there for extra info, and does not contribte too much to actual enging temp . (?) but ok, we just moved on.

Now, I had my handy dandy OBD 2 reader ! So I hooked it all up, and I could watch , in real time, as each new sensor heated up, so confirmed that they were working.

But still Raging Full Speed Fan, and extreme boil over heating and boil overs .

Now I was beginning to feel Raging, too. I'm sure most of you here can relate.

Then I found this post. Thanks OP Cruise-Cruze , and thought well, that's a good idea.
Let's go OLD SCHOOL and fix this like we always have, and quit fighting the computer.

But first, I wanted to address the Raging Fan.
I took out each fan relay, one at a time, to see what it would take to KILL that raging fan.
I took out one relay, and started the car, then stopped. I took out the next relay and started the car and stopped. Until I had ALL four of the speed relays out and , ha ha, guess what NO Fan !
I won, I killed it . ( Relay #5 is that little one that sends power to the other 4 speed relays )

So I put only ONE relay back in. The second one over, The LOW speed fan only.
Start the car cold, and the fan comes on immediately, but just at the low peaceful speed.
With all the other relays out, I don't care what signals the computer sends, we are only powering up the low speed . On all the time , just like old school mechanical fan on the water pump pulley.

Part 2. This post.
Once I decided to OLD SCHOOL RAGE on this car myself, I liked this post. There is no good reason to have the stock thermostat keep ALL the heat in the engine until it gets to boil over, overheat temperature.

So I did exactly this post.
I bought actual DORMAN thermostats , yes two. Not cheaper imitation knock offs, or fancy metal ones, I had already tried them all, too, a while ago, and they all just failed miserably. I wanted to start with ALL new parts. I got the Cruze thermostat and the Cadillac thermostat, part numbers in the first OP post, just like he told us. ( Thanks, OP ) Then I had to switch the guts. like this:

I got a big socket , 22 mm or so, and while on the bench, pushed down and turned , and released the spring and hat assembly, and took out all the easy parts... and then stared at what was left.

Here is the Big CAUTION part ..
For sure DO NOT TWIST the remaining guts to rip that part out.
The Actual Thermostat Temp sensor has Two Tiny Wires way at the back.
So you must gently wiggle/pull it out. Straight- No Twist !
( That's what she said, but this is a PG post )

Then super easy-peasy, take the Cadillac sensor and put it into the Cruze housing and put all those other springy pieces back on. No sweat, and slap that new assembly back in the car.

When re-filling the coolant. BE SURE to remember the hidden pesky air bleed valve at the top passenger side of the radiator. I learned that, too, the hard way, but got the help from this forum, thanks bros.

And I got the recommended 15 pound cap, too .

The car seems to run VERY cool for now. And the heat works. and the AC finally works better, too.
So cool, that I had not even seen it get up to 176 when the new thermostat should open.

I know the car's temp gauge works, because it moves a little bit.
With my OBD 2 scanner , I can see that the engine temp gets to 135 at the first mark off stone cold.

I drove the car all around town. Totally terrified scared that it might overheat again, but no.
totally cool and drove peacefully cool.

I'm calling this a Win. For now.

I returned the car to my son, and I haven't seen it for a week ! Still gone.
He says it runs great. We'll see how long this lasts. I will check with him to see what temp it typically gets up to . ?

I hope my LONG story here might have some tidbits to help, if you have been fighting your Cruze cooling system, too.

P.S. Haters, you can't do that, etc, Ha ha , Well I did it, and the car is gone, out of my driveway.

 

I FIXED it ! I think I may have won the war with the Cruze cooling system ! 2013 Cruze 1.4 T

Part 1 and Part 2

Part 1.
This has been my son's daily driver for several years. It developed the dreaded RAGING High Speed Fan all the time syndrome months/years ago and he has just lived with it that way.
But then recently, ok several months ago, it started to overheat, boil over , spike the temp gauge to full hot, and warning lights, etc, all of it.

First, Part 1. I pulled the radiator fan assembly, which was a rediculous mess that took forever, and changed the electric fan speed control resistor pack, AND the burnt up plug that wired into the electric harness, too . ( P.S. The colors of the wires on the Amazon plug were exactly opposite wrong, so be sure to mark your wires first + - etc, and don't just blindly believe they wired your new plug correctly. )

After thinking I was a genius, and putting it all back togather , the results were basically the same , Raging Full Speed Fan. UNLESS...

Turn the car off. Disconnect BOTH battery cables . And when they are both loose, up in the sky, not touching the battery at all, get a clippy wire and CONNECT the two battery cables. It was scary and I thought it might blow up, but how could it? So, ok, I did that, to re-set zero the computer .

It worked, sort of. I started it cold and NO fan . ! Warmed it up a little, drove a bit , no fan,
more warm up until almost straight down temp gauge, then Full speed RAGE fan.

Turn car off, wait a while. Turn car back on cold the next day, and it starts cold with Full Speed RAGE fan. This went on for several months in my spare time.

Then I got an OBD 2 scanner . I decided to be a Big Boy, and be all grown up. I got a good one, not the cheap entry level. After learning some , and digging around in the screens and settings, I figured out how to check fan speeds, and that all seemed to be working ok.

I took out and checked each ( ALL ) the three fuses and five relays and checked them all, good.

So, it MUST be the sensors, right ? Of course, I was a genius again.

I changed the engine sensor , over on the driver side at the big crazy plastic diverter assembly, and changed the sensor ON the radiator way down on the passenger side, too. After careful reading, I learned that the sensor that is actually ON the thermostat is just there for extra info, and does not contribte too much to actual enging temp . (?) but ok, we just moved on.

Now, I had my handy dandy OBD 2 reader ! So I hooked it all up, and I could watch , in real time, as each new sensor heated up, so confirmed that they were working.

But still Raging Full Speed Fan, and extreme boil over heating and boil overs .

Now I was beginning to feel Raging, too. I'm sure most of you here can relate.

Then I found this post. Thanks OP Cruise-Cruze , and thought well, that's a good idea.
Let's go OLD SCHOOL and fix this like we always have, and quit fighting the computer.

But first, I wanted to address the Raging Fan.
I took out each fan relay, one at a time, to see what it would take to KILL that raging fan.
I took out one relay, and started the car, then stopped. I took out the next relay and started the car and stopped. Until I had ALL four of the speed relays out and , ha ha, guess what NO Fan !
I won, I killed it . ( Relay #5 is that little one that sends power to the other 4 speed relays )

So I put only ONE relay back in. The second one over, The LOW speed fan only.
Start the car cold, and the fan comes on immediately, but just at the low peaceful speed.
With all the other relays out, I don't care what signals the computer sends, we are only powering up the low speed . On all the time , just like old school mechanical fan on the water pump pulley.

Part 2. This post.
Once I decided to OLD SCHOOL RAGE on this car myself, I liked this post. There is no good reason to have the stock thermostat keep ALL the heat in the engine until it gets to boil over, overheat temperature.

So I did exactly this post.
I bought actual DORMAN thermostats , yes two. Not cheaper imitation knock offs, or fancy metal ones, I had already tried them all, too, a while ago, and they all just failed miserably. I wanted to start with ALL new parts. I got the Cruze thermostat and the Cadillac thermostat, part numbers in the first OP post, just like he told us. ( Thanks, OP ) Then I had to switch the guts. like this:

I got a big socket , 22 mm or so, and while on the bench, pushed down and turned , and released the spring and hat assembly, and took out all the easy parts... and then stared at what was left.

Here is the Big CAUTION part ..
For sure DO NOT TWIST the remaining guts to rip that part out.
The Actual Thermostat Temp sensor has Two Tiny Wires way at the back.
So you must gently wiggle/pull it out. Straight- No Twist !
( That's what she said, but this is a PG post )

Then super easy-peasy, take the Cadillac sensor and put it into the Cruze housing and put all those other springy pieces back on. No sweat, and slap that new assembly back in the car.

When re-filling the coolant. BE SURE to remember the hidden pesky air bleed valve at the top passenger side of the radiator. I learned that, too, the hard way, but got the help from this forum, thanks bros.

And I got the recommended 15 pound cap, too .

The car seems to run VERY cool for now. And the heat works. and the AC finally works better, too.
So cool, that I had not even seen it get up to 176 when the new thermostat should open.

I know the car's temp gauge works, because it moves a little bit.
With my OBD 2 scanner , I can see that the engine temp gets to 135 at the first mark off stone cold.

I drove the car all around town. Totally terrified scared that it might overheat again, but no.
totally cool and drove peacefully cool.

I'm calling this a Win. For now.

I returned the car to my son, and I haven't seen it for a week ! Still gone.
He says it runs great. We'll see how long this lasts. I will check with him to see what temp it typically gets up to . ?

I hope my LONG story here might have some tidbits to help, if you have been fighting your Cruze cooling system, too.

P.S. Haters, you can't do that, etc, Ha ha , Well I did it, and the car is gone, out of my driveway.

Welcome Aboard!

Don't forget to introduce yourself and your Cruze here.

 

This isn't working very well for me. It seems to just heat up the coolant in the radiator and the fans don't come on until about 226°F. It seems to delay the heat but you just end up heating up all your coolant and to properly fix the heat problems the fans would also need to come on at a lower temperature.
How are people getting 185°F consistently with the fans not kicking on until stock temperatures?

 

would running hotter spark plugs during the winter help with gas dilution and MPG'S

 

Even though I own a Sonic and not a Cruze, I signed up to this website just so that I could post a big thanks to CRUISE-CRUZE in this forum for the cooler thermostat fix. I bought a 2012 Sonic hatchback with the 1.4 Turbo last year to replace my old 99 Cavalier with the 2.2 SOHC LN2 engine that still ran great but had significantly rusted underneath in the body subframe to render it unsafe. The Sonic has run well over the past year but about 2 months ago I started smelling the telltale coolant odor after I shut the engine off. It turned out to be the plastic water outlet that was disintegrating and I found this information thread when venturing down the rabbit hole that can only describe 1.4 turbo ecotec cooling system. After reading this thread and all of its replies I was convinced that these little engines badly want to destroy themselves when using the stock Thermostats. I managed to buy both the Volt flavored and the Cruze/Sonic/Trax/Entourage versions of the Dorman replacements and then do the innards swap. Aside from one hiccup where the wire connector that had been most stubborn to disconnect when changing to the new T-stat had somehow come loose overnight and then causing it to throw a P0597 "Thermostat Heater Control Circuit/Open" code that was immediately reconnected and fixed it has been great.

I find now after moving to the cooler Volt T-stat that he interior heat is still just fine though it may take a bit longer to come up. I find that the Sonic's heat is still plenty warm but not so warm as it had been before under that original crazy hot T-stat that it felt like it was borderline going to melt the dash plastic. I also replaced the leakingm water outlet with the MITzone cast Al version that is found on Amazon and so far all is bone dry and I have real peace of mind. I also added the 15 psi GM coolant reservoir cap as many others did. It is December and cold outside but the car seems no different other than what appears to be the longer time for interior heat and the lower max interior heat that is no longer "ludicrous hot" but actually pleasant. I do not have the nice dash temp gage on the Sonic so I have no basis for visual comparisons. Finally, my only wish for all of this would be that Dorman made an aluminum T-stat housing to match the cast aluminum water outlet. I see that there are aluminum T-stat housings for the 1.4 ecotecs but they do not use the same swappable innards as the Dormans. Hey Dorman! - Wanna score some easy additional $? Please manufacture a cast Al housing that works with your current T-stat inner components. If you do I will gladly give you more of my $.

BTW, about a month or so before I did all of this cooling system upgrading I experienced some bad ignition misfires. It turns out that my coil pack had gone bad. When I remored it to swap in the new one I noticed that my old one was warped so badly that it could have rocked on a flat surface if the boot extensions were not there. I think this warpage was most likely due to the high operating temp of the engine.

Thanks again CRUISE-CRUZE for helping us to extend the lives of our 1.4s!

 

No criticism here actually it's very smart. I've had nothing but problems with my girlfriend's 2013 1.4L turbo. Got hot blew a head gasket. $5,000.00 later had that issue fixed and now having same symptoms of another failing head gasket. Yes we battled for days over the price of the repair. She won.
Now it acting up again. I won unfortunately.
Now days manufacturers don't care about quality anymore.
I wish to thank you for what seems to be the answer to my problem.

 

Also in your defense. I don't know anyone who thinks running an aluminum block and head at high temperatures exceeding 230° especially a tiny little motor of 1.4l under pressure is wise by any means especially with those dink head bolts. A comfortable temperature for that combo is 180°. But manufacturers don't care. Bring it on in to the dealership they'll fix it. LOL!!