It must be the time of the year... but I have gone through two of these bastards in the last month... I am not amused.

This is the sensor that goes on the water pump.

The last one was a new AC Delco part. The current one is a suspect O'Reilly's BDW part...

Junk aftermarket sensors.

And the last one was an ACDelco!

I ordered a Delphi from Summit... my next stab will be a racing quality part, or something of that nature. The trick will be the resistance to temperature ratios...

I might be on to something.

Last night, I replaced the ACDelco with a BWD from O'Rielly's. I have a real problem with me being the only person with issues with these things.

Driving in this morning, it's working great! then all of a sudden, it freaks out.

What happened? I had to pass through a very potholed intersection.

In short... a bad connector!! I am going to test the theory... see if I can compress the sockets down inside the connector a bit.

Yea, that sounds like a connection.
I have never had a coolant temp sensor go bad, I've changed several just as a "while I'm there" repair.

As far as the BWD brand, I've given up on them. Just too many failed parts in the last few years.

Joel

I know what you mean by BWD... I hate them, too, but... I figured it would last longer than 12.5 miles.

Andy, out of curiosity, do you need to drain the cooling system in order to replace the temp sensor?

I've heard of the temp sensors causing all kinds of grief, and while the one in my '92 is doing ok (knock wood), I know it's probably just a matter of time. Just wondering how much of a p.i.t.a. they are to change.

easy, really... and no, I don't drain jack... I just pull and replace real quick!

all you need is a 3/4" offset wrench and your golden. Swap takes well under 10 minutes.

Score time...

new Delphi? Dead out out of the box...

I then swapped controllers, and put one in that was bad, but would at least read something other than 142F!

Controller worked. so far... new sensor from Autozone and no problems so far... also replaced the pig tail...

we shall see.

I have only put about 30 miles on the Autozone part, but so far, it is working. It seems to be reading a bit lower, but at the same time, it seems more in sync with the right head analog sensors' reading.

It seems to be about 5F lower than the prior units. At this point, I am not going to complain...

The Autozone part, with pigtail was $15.00 and was made by Wells in Mexico. Any bets it's built on the same line as the BDW POS that O'Reilly sells? Whatever the case, it's working so I ain't bitching.

I spoke with a colleague and he had a similar problem with his Cherokee blowing out coils. He found that the engine controller was sending feedback over the ground, and the ground on that was a loop back, and the coil was the first in the loop... I did replace my engine controller, just in case it was over volting the sensor.

And, to be sure, replaced the pigtail.