According to Gates, 3% of all thermostats in the UK car parc will fail every year. Here the company explains why this is and how you can ensure you’re not caught cold during an icy snap.
During an extended period of cold at this time last year, the number of drivers who booked their cars in for ‘thermostat replacement’ rose significantly throughout the UK. They found that just when heat was required, cold, rather than warm air was being blown into the cabin.
Gates, one of the UK’s leading thermostat suppliers to the aftermarket, invests heavily to ensure its product range reflects OE trends. It says that although failure may have occurred at sometime previously, it’s only the cold snap that makes drivers aware that the problem exists.
So, how easy is it to predict the vehicles that are most likely to experience thermostat failure and what are manufacturers doing to improve thermostat design?
Component failure
A good thermostat speeds engine warm-up and regulates the operating temperature. This results in good fuel economy, lower emissions, better engine performance and longer engine life. Thermostats constantly monitor the temperature of the cooling system and regulate coolant flow through the radiator.
Gates points out that there are few issues with either thermostat reliability or the installation of replacements. The reasons why thermostats fail are largely related to component age and completed miles. Extended periods of intense use of components, which are already approaching the end of their operational life, is likely to intensify the rate of failure. Improved technology means that the ‘fail-safe’ features of more modern thermostats ensure that engine overheating is a less likely consequence of component failure these days.
Thermostat failure is more usually characterised by overcooling. Failure of the part may actually have been evident, though undetected, for quite some time beforehand. Symptoms include: poorer engine performance, increased fuel consumption and higher emissions levels.
Design technology and trends
The employment of Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) technology in thermostat design will increase over the next few years. MAP technology improves control regulation, with significant benefits such as: increased fuel efficiency, tighter control over emissions and extended operational life.
Many of the latest cars are equipped with thermostats inside ‘housing units’ with the lightweight plastic used in the manufacturing process of these units a reflection of the need to conform to the OE weight reduction policies at VM level. As such, Gates expects this to add sales value by around 15% per year over the next few years. In a chilly climate, that’s got to be heart-warming news for vehicle repair specialists everywhere.
THE TOP THERMOSTAT SELLERS
According to Gates sales statistics, released at the end of last year, Nissan Navara 2.5 litre (diesel) cars were featuring most frequently on the vehicles ‘booked-in’ sheets. Peugeot 106 1.1 (petrol) and Volkswagen Golf 1.9 (d) were closely behind in second and third place on the Gates sales-by-quantity figures.
There are quite different figures if thermostat sales by value are examined. On those ratings, Gates says that the drivers experiencing VOR situations more frequently because of thermostat failure were those behind the wheel of a Vauxhall.
More specifically, Zafira 1.6 (petrol), Vectra 1.9 (diesel) and Corsa 1.3 (d) were at 1,2,3 in the Gates sales-by-value charts. That’s good news if you have access to a range such as Gates, which is wide on application suitability but low in terms of references on the shelf (498).
