motorad failsafe thermostats?

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Anyone had experience with these? Are they any good or should I stick with something like stant? it will go in a 2002 Dodge Grd Caravan 3.3L.
 
I believe if OEM was good enough to last 11 years,another OEM will do the trick...even though it may be made by Stant or someone else under the Mopar label.
 
Absolute garbage! Whats the point anyway? So your engine gets to 230F, so what. But the thermostat hangs open and now you must replace it.

It's been my experiance that those failsafe stats lock open @ normal operating temps. That 3.3L in that van will hit 230F very often believe it or not. The temperature guage is a dummy guage anyway. As long as it's between 190 and 230 the needle stays in the normal area. Once up to about 240F it will move 1 click towards hot.
 
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If it's imported engines/import car brands, always go with OEM.

No use fuzzing over a few bucks of savings, only to have them (non OEM aftermarket shxt) fail on you prematurely, or when you least expected).

I have had excellent luck with OEM Honda, Mazda, Mitsu and Toys. I dropped STant and motorad thermostats during my servicing over a decade ago, due to high failure rate and inconsistent performance (e.g. motorad failsafe didn't keep the unit wide open when failed, but instead completely shut which lead to partial engine overheating).

Q.
 
Originally Posted By: eoghan
Anyone had experience with these? Are they any good or should I stick with something like stant? it will go in a 2002 Dodge Grd Caravan 3.3L.


I tried 2 different brands, both failed within a year. Get the oem ones from Dodge dealer. They are high quality and cheaper then the so-called failsafe ones. I even use the 3.3 Tstats in my turbo 2.5 Caravan. Works great..

Wayne
 
Stick with oem and change it when you change the the coolant. A failsafe thermostat will either keep you in open loop (too cold)or make you overheat if it fails depending on weather or driving conditions.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Absolute garbage! Whats the point anyway? So your engine gets to 230F, so what. But the thermostat hangs open and now you must replace it.

It's been my experiance that those failsafe stats lock open @ normal operating temps. That 3.3L in that van will hit 230F very often believe it or not. The temperature guage is a dummy guage anyway. As long as it's between 190 and 230 the needle stays in the normal area. Once up to about 240F it will move 1 click towards hot.


I agree. Garbage, Would never buy one ever again. You can search for my experience with Motorad. Should have taken Chris's advice.
 
Originally Posted By: J281v8
Stick with oem and change it when you change the the coolant. A failsafe thermostat will either keep you in open loop (too cold)or make you overheat if it fails depending on weather or driving conditions.

No need to change thermostat at every coolant change(about 3-4 years). Only change it when it failed.

I change coolant in my LS400 every 3-4 years with Prestone or Peak, the thermostat was changed once about 7-8 years ago. The car is 19 years old and 300k miles now.

My 13 years old E430 with 14xk miles has original thermostat and water pump, the coolant was changed 3 times (every 3-4 years).
 
Originally Posted By: eoghan
Anyone had experience with these? Are they any good or should I stick with something like stant? it will go in a 2002 Dodge Grd Caravan 3.3L.


also this is a flex fuel e85 vehicle - current factory thermostat is stuck partway open, last couple of days engine has not reached normal temp and heater is much cooler than normal.
 
Avoid "failsafe" t-stats like the plague. Just stick to a OEM t-stat and be worry free.
 
Originally Posted By: eoghan
Originally Posted By: eoghan
Anyone had experience with these? Are they any good or should I stick with something like stant? it will go in a 2002 Dodge Grd Caravan 3.3L.


also this is a flex fuel e85 vehicle - current factory thermostat is stuck partway open, last couple of days engine has not reached normal temp and heater is much cooler than normal.


flex-fuel or not is irrelevant in this case. Just get an OE replacement thermostat, refill coolant (purge properly) and be over with it.

We deal with water-cooled diesel engines with failed thermostat the same way as gasoline/NG engines: replace t-stat and refill coolant.

Q.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Absolute garbage! Whats the point anyway? So your engine gets to 230F, so what. But the thermostat hangs open and now you must replace it.

It's been my experiance that those failsafe stats lock open @ normal operating temps. That 3.3L in that van will hit 230F very often believe it or not. The temperature guage is a dummy guage anyway. As long as it's between 190 and 230 the needle stays in the normal area. Once up to about 240F it will move 1 click towards hot.


This makes absolutely no sense to me. The reason to use a failsafe is that it's suppose to fail in the open position (run cool) rather than fail closed and cause the engine to overheat.
 
the term failsafe is wrong.they fail open because they have a hook and when the engine hit a certain temp the hook catches on the piston which holds it open. they basically let you know that your engine got to around 230f which is still a normal temp depending pn corcumstances. once a failsafe locks open you can unhook it and it will work again until it hits 230f again.
 
IMHO "failsafe" thermostat is just a gimmicky marketing terms used, for most of the time when a thermostat fails (and I'll explain a bit more later) by means of remained wide open, your engine will run cool and do not have cabin heat, highway cabin heat is non-existent, radiator runs cool, temperature needle stays at the bottom, etc.

If a thermostat fails shut, you'll see your temp needle creeps up to "H" while your radiator fan (depending on cooling jacket routing and design, some may not turn on the radiator fan) stays on all the time.

I've seen both factory thermostat failed open/failed shut in equal opportunities, and many instances of "failsafe" thermostat failed shut (instead of wide open and locked itself at a predetermined locking tab), causing engine overheating.

So, use it if you will but I wouldn't recommend using them at all (in all my applications and all the vehicles I serviced so far).

Q.
 
After seeing the quality difference between OEM and aftermarket, this is a part that I'm going w/ OEM from now on. It should only need replacing once when you use a quality 'stat.
 
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