my car is a 1997 pontiac grand am, 2.4l 4-cyl with 148k miles... filled with dexcool. it has the factory 180*f thermostat (IMO thats pretty cold, especially according to today's emissions standards). i would like to get a little better gas mileage out of the car though, and i have seen a 192 and 195*f thermostat for sale online. would slightly hotter engine temps hurt? i know... some may say "well it came that way from the factory so dont mess with it". i've had several high performance cars that i've put lower temperature thermostats into with no problems at all, so maybe it would also work the other way around...? the car is slow to reach operating temperature and rarely creeps above operating temperature even in the summer heat or in traffic, so overheating isn't a problem.
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