Looking more closely at temperature issue(s).

If GM saw fit to do away with the coolant temp. page on the DIC and make the temp gauge little more useful than that on a "Cruisin' USA" arcade game, how is the opinion of a few people that actually make the company less money by repairing their own cars and making an effort to keep them instead of trading in for a new one going to influence them to change it to a more sensible design? If the car, in stock form, is capable of feeding live temp info to the gauge, I see it as aftermarket territory. I see our little faction as a part of GM's buyer base that they want to keep around for reputation and promotion - when many of us bought our Cruze, we overlooked certain things other manufacturers' offerings may have done better for some personal preference or just brand loyalty, and our community is a much better place for a prospective first-time buyer to come to get the scoop on how good the cars really are instead of trying to get a fully honest, pro-and-con answer out of a sales rep at a dealership. Another thing many prospective buyers consider, especially in the market segment the Cruze falls into, is resale value, and one who comes here can - if the car deserves it - give a whole different angle on longevity and resale than what Kelley Blue Book spits out. There are other elements I think the manufacturer can draw from the enthusiast community (us), but watching the industry-wide evolution of options package changes, drivetrain and body style configurations, etc., I see the manufacturer focusing intently on what they can get off the showroom floor in mass and what appeals to the buyer type that looks for every distraction from driving (big screen in the dash, on board wi-fi, the greatest number of "connectivity" modes, etc.) over those that put priority on the driving experience itself.

If I could get a more affordable tune that made only minor tweaks to the actual tune, but livened up the temp. gauge, reduced rev hang, made throttle response more physical, etc. - basically, just undid what GM saw fit to do for the average driver that sees the car as a closed system aside from the gas cap, I'd be very likely to buy into it.

Ha, back in the good old days when the radiator cap was on top of the hood, a sign of overheating was steam coming out of it.

My 2012 2LT is the same way, analog gauge only goes almost midway, not only a worthless gauge, so is the speedometer, steering wheel completely blocks it. And why a 140 mph gauge? Resolution is so poor on this thing, can't even tell if you are driving 26 or 25 mph, and with all these left over 9/11 cops, 26 mph can give you a speeding ticket.

If you learned how to fly, really trained to watch your gauges, in particular the tach and the EGT, if you push the stick a tad forward, can red line the engine, every time you change your altitude a couple of feet, EGT can run lean burning out your engine, have a mixture control to compensate for this. Sure have to watch your fuel gauges, oil pressure, just can't pull over to the side of the road. Well also navigation, ATC, tower, and ground radio frequencies.

With the Cruze, leave the DIC in temperature mode, hit that center switch to keep a close eye on that, then click that back for speed. Would be nice to have a real temperature gauge. Reading all the cooling system problems on this board doesn't help. On any long trip, even 40 miles, open the hood for a quick check, put a black mark on my recovery tank, also nice to know if you have engine oil.

Ha, wasn't born paranoid, sure became this way. Like my GPS, also shows speed, changes to red if even going over 1 mph over the limit. Cruise dies at 24 mph, many areas in town, have as low as 10 mph speed limits with cops all over the place. Expect in the next few years, we will be driving backwards.

I believe the temp gauge is programmed to know when the car is purposely commanding a high temperature (low load situations) and when the car is actually overheating and it can't bring itself down. At this point, the gauge should start to function as it should, at least that's how it worked in another new GM car we had. It had a crack in the radiator. I've seen that car at 210 degrees in the past (185 normal running temp) but the gauge was perfectly normal. However, one day it started increasing past the middle, up some more, up some more, and then the fan came on and the computer commanded a higher idle and it slowly came back down...idle dropped, fan turned off, went back up. Rinse repeat. But when I looked at actual temp, highest it was getting was 218, but was far above normal line. Only got back to "normal" at 185. Weird stuff going on with these, but I suppose GM knows what they're doing. Haven't watched my mustang on the OBD monitor - should do that. Wanna talk about a gauge that doesn't move...ha. Would be lucky if I noticed it moving, very small and has no tick marks on it besides cold and hot.


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