Start the motor the temperature gauge goes to cold?

DANBOB5

MEMBER
2000 DODGE NEON
2.0L
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
190,000 MILES

With the key in the on position and a warm motor the temperature gauge works, and you can turn the cruise on and off. When you start the motor, the gauge goes to cold and the cruise stops working. Shows no codes.

Saturday, April 6th, 2024 AT 6:54 AM

3 Replies

KEN L

MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
48,483 POSTS

Yes, the cruise will not work if the engine is cold, I would swap out the engine coolant temperature sensor which should fix the problem. Here is the location of the sensor so you can swap it out. Check out the images (below). Let us know if you need anything else.

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Saturday, April 6th, 2024 AT 1:17 PM

DANBOB5

MEMBER
2 POSTS

I finally got the temperature sensor replaced and it did not help the problem. The gage still drops to cold when the motor is started. I checked the voltage at the sensor when the motor was hot, and the gauge showed it was hot and got 2.6 volts. When I started the motor and the gage went to cold I still had 2.6 volts at the sensor. So, it looks like the sensor is not controlling the gauge. Can't figure out what the problem could be.

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Sunday, April 14th, 2024 AT 10:31 PM

KEN L

MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
48,483 POSTS

When you say there are no codes did you do a CAN scan? You can get a CAN scanner (Controller Area Network) which will work on most cars from Amazon.

Here is a video to show you how:

https://youtu.be/u-4syLc-ifQ

and

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/can-scan-controller-area-network-easy

To me the gauge cluster or PCM will be bad, the temperature gauge is fed by the PCM, I would do the scan first to see if any cods are stored.

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Monday, April 15th, 2024 AT 9:29 AM