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Stock Temperature Gauges
In short - they suck a lot.
In long -
For whatever reason, manufacturers of automobiles use the stupidest temperature gauges you could imagine. The issue is pretty much across the board, possibly with the exception of Jeep, but I haven't been in a new Jeep. My 93 Grand Cherokee did not suffer from this problem, but that's no spring chicken these days.
The specific problem is - the temperature gauges in modern cars are terrible in many ways. The most obvious way is no actual temperature readouts on the gauge. You're lucky to get a "high" and "low" little red line, and a big green swath of "good probably" in the middle of them. Are you at 220? 200? 240? you'll never know.
To exacerbate this issue, most manufacturers 'tweak' their temperature gauges so they always show right in the middle of the green "good" temperature area. I guess this is so the uneducated people don't freak out when they see the needle moving up and down as it would do during normal operation. I've seen this accomplished with diodes and such that make the needle "stick" in the good area for a wide range of temps. Some gauges can be modded so that the needle actually swings to-and-fro with temperature changes, however you still get the above issue where you don't know what the temperature actually is.
My last car, I had a datalogger to the ECU and logged temperatures anywhere between 185 and 230 degrees, and the OEM temperature gauge didn't move a lick. I ended up replacing the OEM gauge with a cheap-o autometer one for when I wasn't logging and it was much more informative.
Don't rely on the stock temperature gauge, when it says "hot" it may already be too late.
-Jesse
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