"Jim K.." wrote in message
o.uk...
Harry Bloomfield Wrote in message:
NY wrote :
Maybe the needle is telling porkies... Hopefully it *would* rise into
the
danger zone if the coolant really *did* get hot - eg if a hose burst -
otherwise it's not a lot of use in indicating a fault.

No doubt, but it wouldn't give much warning, just a sudden movement up
to max after the engine has seized. I doubt it would be much help even
if the loss was slow.

That is why they did a little gadget which plugs into the OBD,
indicates true temperature and sounds an alarm over a preset
temperature.


Did the Renault 14 have an OBD port?

I don't know. The car was a Y-suffix so 1983/4. Were OBD ports (and
after-market devices to decode information on the OBD) available in those
days? Goodness knows what Renault were smoking the day they put the
temperature gauge down there. All other cars that I've ever seen, older or
newer, have had the temperature gauge (or at least an over-heat light) on
the dashboard near the speedo, fuel gauge, oil pressure and
dynamo/alternator lights. Even other Renaults had the gauge/light in a
visible location.

I see that the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_14
mentions it: "The placement of the temperature gauge on the transmission
tunnel behind the gear-lever, rather than on the instrument panel where it
was directly in the driver's field of view, led to incidents of engine
damage if the engine overheated and the driver failed to notice."