Re: Thermostats / beating this dead horse...again

[Rodney Tidwell <rodneygt@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Skybeaver6@domain.elided wrote:

> As y'all may recall, I am a new Alfa owner.  My experience with
> vehicle
> maintenance as a Maintenance Officer for a Combat Engineer Battalion
> with 46
> mechanics under my supervision and 230 pieces of covnentional and
> bizarre
> military equipment (ACE, M728CEV, etc...) should qualify my comments
> for
> review...especially since they are non-Alfa specific yet specific to
> combustion engines.
>
>   Running a vehicle without a thermostat.
>
> Engineers design engines to run efficiently at a normal operating
> temperature.
> This temperature is moderated by the cooling system, thermostat, fan,
> et al.

Correct.

> The utilization of a vehicle without a thermostat should be undertaken
> only in
> emergency situations and not utilized again until repairs are
> executed.

That's a bit overboard.  "Should," yes, out of, primarily, an
overabundance of caution.

> Comments as to 'I drove my Yugo 3,000 miles without a thermostat and
> it never
> overheated' is poor advice to post as someone is liable to attempt it.
> (Unless
> of course, one was driving to flee a tornado...i.e. emergency)

I made a comment somewhat similar to this.  If that is what you
reference, you apparently didn't understand the tenor of the entire
post.  Anyway, it's not advice.  It's merely a statement.

> I am sure that one could bypass the fuel filter and remove the air
> filter,
> drive the car for several hundred miles and comment, 'Drives great'.
> Common
> sense tells us that you are rolling the dice....your car will
> eventually
> suffer catastrophic failure.

I don't believe this would qualify as an analogy.  It's a different
situation.

>
>
> Fred Di Matteo is correct that a thermostat 'delays' coolant so that
> it can be
> cooled in the radiator.  Remember as a kid when you had a bowl of hot
> soup and
> your mom would pour it in another bowl.  Same concept.  The first bowl
> removed
> heat from the soup.

What Mr. DiMatteo said was not, by itself, incorrect.  However, in
context, it was misleading.  The coolant picks up less heat per unit and
loses less heat per unit when the thermostat is removed.  I'm not
advocating it, just pointing it out.

> Even if the car runs cool, the engine is not a proper efficiency as
> designed.

Correct.

> I have made enough field repairs on combat equipment in combat to
> understand
> that hasty repairs are sometimes required.  (You would be surprised
> what you
> can fabricate/repair with a tube of RTV, a bail of lacing wire, and
> some duct
> tape...and these vehicles have performed in sustained combat
> operations for
> days at a time)  But fighting a war and getting home late a night
> mitigate
> such procedures....

>

> Driving around for days being arrogant and stupid do not
> justify such behavior.

You would actually label someone arrogant or stupid for driving a car
without a thermostat?  Read on.

> When you elect to sell this vehicle, be sure to include in the ad:
> "Low
> miles, all records, drove vehicle 3,000 miles without thermostat".
> Any
> intelligent buyer would pull a Monty Python and 'RUN AWAY....RUN
> AWAY....

I work so I don't have time to give you all of the details of why
running a car without a thermostat for 3000 miles has a negligible
effect  on a cars mechanical state (relative to other cars that never
went 1 mile without a thermostat).  But, consider the following.

First you have to understand one of the main purposes for the thermostat
in the cooling system.   The manufacturer of a vehicle that is to be
driven in extreme climate variations would have to
design a cooling system that would,at the very least, allow the car to
run at its optimum temperature without overheating in the hottest
environments.  The flip side of that is that the same car would have to
be designed to run at optimum temperature in, say, a New England winter.
The thermostat performs that task.  It allows the same radiator, etc. to
be used  in the same car in winter in North Dakota as would be used in
summer in Texas without a significant change in the car's running
temperature. Without the thermostat, a car might run, for example, at a
peak of 100 F in January in North Dakota.  Whereas, the same car might
run at a peak of 120 F in Texas in June.  Of course, the optimum might
be 180 F.

Now, if you have understand what the preceding means, think of what it
implies.  One of the things that should jump out at you is that the car
in the North Dakota winter will reach optimum temperature later than the
equivalent car in a Texas summer.  What follows from that is that the ND
car will spend much less of its life at optimum temperature.  By now,
you should see where I'm going with this.  That is, if the Yugo has lost
merchantability because it has run below optimum for 3K, so has the ND
car.

But, it doesn't stop there.  Some people commute long distances.  Some
people drive few miles (or less) to work.  I won't point out the obvious
difference these people's cars have as concerns the amount of time spent
at optimum (the short commute car is less desirable to the consumer for
other reasons I won't go into).  The short commute car will, of course,
have spent few of its miles at optimum.

Now consider the short commute car in North Dakota . . . .

You see, If you base your assertion that the Yugo's value is decreased
on the mere 3k where it didn't reach optimum, your argument falls
short.  You need to plug a few more factors into your Monty Python
equation.

If the car is damaged for some other reason, please educate.

Rodney G. Tidwell

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