Im changing my thermostat today, Just wonder what brand I should get, my autozone have one in duralast really cheap, just wonder who made duralast thermostat ? its any good ? thanks !

When it comes to thermostats, I only use one from the dealer.

OEM is the best quality on this one, and they seem to last longer.

Agreed!

Motorad Fail-Safe.

I've had good expierence with Stant especially the superstant.

Superstant, OEM.

Napa Super Stat. Robert Shaw is good too, if you can find one. Don't use a cheap thermostat. They don't open and close right and they won't last.

Dealer part is best. Stant Superstats are usually good, regular Stants are not. Robert Shaw were good but hard to find and now made in china.

motorad any good ?

Where was it made? Israel? China?

OEM for my Subaru.

The difference in design between the Subaru and the Stant is amazing.

OEM or stant...

OEM only. Test it in a pot of water first too...

who made oem for chevy ?

OEM and Failsafe if it's an option and not the default.

Assuming it's a Camaro (or other GM product), a SuperStant or OEM would be your best bet. If there's any doubt whatsoever, stick with OEM.

For my 1990 Lincoln Town Car that I used to have, the Motorcraft was HALF the price of the Canadian Tire brand. Seeing a dealer undercut a major chain by that much is rare.

With my Audi 200 Turbo, the SuperStant is the wrong temperature, by a substantial margin, so I went with the OEM supplier, Wahler, for the correct temperature.

Well, it would be boxed and labelled as a GM or an AC Delco.

This is one of the LAST parts that I'd ever go cheap on.

After my experiences with the Neon, I'd vote for a Fail-Safe thermostat over any OEM that goes shut upon failure.

Put a Motorad failsafe in my Mazda 626...It stuck open within a month or so after install. It did not stick open due to overheating...just got a bad one. Put an Altrom from Napa which looked exactly like the OEM and it has been fine since.

Same here! At least for Ford and GM that I've owned.

My OEM thermostat from the dealer is failsafe. I know because when the last one failed locked open. I was thankful because I have an all aluminum engine. I could imagine the cost to fix things if it overheated.

Yup, I would imagine the vast majority of them are.

I bought a OEM 180* super stant, it ran a little hotter then I though, I support to be normal , but I want a little cooler, I went with duralast 160* ( I saw motorad by in germany Hehehe ). So I know it good quality. My car run alot cooler and drive alot power just like before. The one I pull out that been their for year is 160*, so I replace it with 160* and program with hypertech to make the fan turn on at 160*. Thanks for help every one.

Robertshaw were BY FAR the best T-stat design ever. But yes, they're long gone and the design was bought by Mr. Gasket and manufacturing outsourced to China. They're pretty cheesily made now, but at least still have the nice "gate valve" mechanism that isn't affected by flow.

As for dealer parts- a few years after a given model year, the "OEM" parts sold at the dealer are made by the lowest bidder. There's absolutely NO guarantee that they're made by the real OEM.

Regular Stant works fine for me.

The regular Stant works great in my Jeep as well. The previous t-stat looked identical to the Stant I put in yesterday, and I think it was original.

How often do you guys replace your t-stats? Every coolant change?

I replace it if it's not holding temp right, or is showing other issues. On my Jeep, being that it's in a tough spot, and I had stuff apart around it this weekend while I was doing the plenum gasket, I replaced it just in case, as it wasn't much extra work.

I would agree. I could change the one on my Audi every coolant change, since it's an easy job (at least with my small hands, others recommend yanking the power steering pump) and uses an O-ring instead of a gasket. Others are more difficult.

If it's cheap and easy, go for it every coolant change. If one has a temperature gauge, then keep an eye on that. I've been lucky. Every thermostat failure I've had (even on the non-failsafe types) have resulted in them sticking open, rather than closed.

I've only ever seen 1 t-stat fail (it was 22 years old) on a 454 marine engine. It stuck closed. Once the engine cooled and was refilled, it opened fine the next day. It was, of course, replaced ASAP.

Fortunately, my Jeep has temp and oil pressure gauges, and they're not dummy gauges, so they have no smoothing applied to the readings. The temp gauge actually shows the temp rising and falling 3-4* as the fan cycles in traffic, and the oil pressure gauge increases with RPM like the actual pressure.

Thanks gents. What's "typical" lifespan of these? Average?

Lifespan of OEM is about 8-12 years or 100-150k miles if you regularly changing your coolant every 3-5 years or 50-60k miles.

Lifespan is effectively infinite for stock stats in GMC trucks. I have one running today with 400K miles on the original. Others with 250k.

I've seen many that start to act up around 5-7 year range. Usually what you see is they open too fast and the engine warms up slowly. It might even be unnoticable until it gets bad enough that the engine runs cold all the time in winter.

Same here. I made this comparison pic while doing mine a few years back with the genuine Subaru on the left and the stant on the right

Wow - that's crazy! I'll stick with OEM too.
I've never regretted doing that - to he!! with saving a few bucks!

Here is the jobber one i pulled out of my integra compared to an oem one. jobber lasted less than 3 years.

Wow, talk about different construction!

it been few day, since I change the thermostat and completely forgot about this topic lol. See some pix above , that big different from some OEM to aftermarket thermostat. Im running 160 autozone duralast ( motorad brand made from germany ), im happy with this. Look quality.

I recently installed a Motorrad in my Corolla; it also is much beefier then the Stant superstate I pulled out. Plus the Motorrad has the jiggle pin.

However, it does seem to be overcooling a bit. On long downhill stretches, the temp gauge is dropping a bit.

Porcupine73,

Your photo speaks volumes; so I drove downtown to our Subaru dealer for a thermostat for my 2001 Outback 2.5. OUCH-----$42.23 before tax, at some point quality is just too expensive. Hope this one lasts the life of the car as it has 133k.

I know you are not on here much anymore, but in case you come back;

You cannot go wrong with the Moto-Rads for LT1/LS1 f-bodies!!
It's the ONLY brand I would use for our cars, and it is the brand which is actually IN the boxes labelled "HyperTech"/"Evans", and "SLP", but you did not pay the extra premium ($$) for those boxes, so you made out VERY well!!

Wow. Holy thread resurrection, Batman!! +1 on the Moto-rads

Motorad's are really good..

I have a robertshaw in my Ranger, it's been in there since 1998.
Got it at autozone of all places.
then autozone switched to the motorad failsafe, which personally is a great idea but it just didn't seem like a highly functional stat.. jmho

kragen's was selling robertshaw's under the Prestone name, I never got a chance to get a couple more.. they now have Gates, which I'm 100% fine with, they're Stants anyway.

Really, the only time I replaced a t-stat was for PM, not because of failure. But, when I have replace a thermostat, I have used both Robertshaw and SuperSTAT and both were identical to the OE that I replaced.

Motorad was no good in my Corolla; would never get to operating temp in cold weather.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...rue#Post2080918

I've had a standard 2 1/8" Motorad in my LA318 for 13 months now. The jiggle valve made filling and burping the system a non issue compared to the Superstant, and it warms up at the same rate as the Superstants I always used previously.

The first time it opens, the temp gauge seems to rise a little higher before before falling quickly back to the expected reading.

Since I can drive with the engine cover off, and do so on occasion, I can feel the heat from the radiator, and know when the t stat opens and closes. This behavior seems to have changed with the motorad, as sometimes I get blasted with engine heat, then it abruptly stops for a while, then blasts the heat again. I remember the Superstant was more of a constant heat rather than an on and off thing, but memory is becoming more fickle as I age. I'd also gone from a brass/copper double 5/8" row radiator to a single 1 1/4" single row all aluminum radiator so a true comparison is not possible.

OEM chrysler out of the 03 T&C we just picked up was no better made than a stant. in fact, its failure was one of the legs on it snapped from the spring tension, warping the whole unit and allowing constant flow. rockauto sold me an ac delco for $5 and it went right in.

Someone above mentioned fluctuation--- I had that with a stant. Upgraded to a superstant and it was more constant.

I have done a couple of subaru t-stats... YES the oems always look beefier than aftermarket, BUT the 2 I've changed failed young at ~60k, and they failed CLOSED. I slapped a S-stant (i *think* it was an s-stant) in one of them (this is years ago, a 88 GL) and my buddy drove that car, leaking like a sieve, until maybe 6 years ago (he's in the navy). the stant lasted another 140k miles and 15 years.

That said, i think the plain stants are hit-and-miss off the shelf. Put one in a buddy's 1500 and returned it, and it's replacement, before going to NAPA (looked like a superstant) and got it right.

M

Had a check engine light on my 2006 Explorer. Autozone said it was a low operating temperature. The temp gauge was running at about 1/3 to halfway. When warmed up it had been running at the exact halfway mark since I bought it new. Bought the Autozone Duralast replacement. I put it in with a new gasket/ o-ring and the old one looked very similar to the new. Now it's back to it's halfway mark on the temp gauge. We'll see which one lasts longer.

I had an annoying experience with the failsafe on my 96 4.0 Explorer. When I parked it at work, the failsafe opened far enough to lock open (designed that way). On the way home I had no heat, so I had to do the whole job again and buy another thermostat without the locking feature.

OEM is the best, the aftermarkets tend to cycle while driving: open close open close,

^^I meant the open/closed cycle on aftermarket produces big swings on my temp gauage, it goes higher than half, then down to 1/4, and repeats

^ Sounds like you've been getting bad ones, or need to drill a small hole in the t-stat to keep flow past the pellet more consistent. I've currently got a Stant superstat in the Jeep, and the gauge is solid and consistent once it's up to temp.

I have driven my 4.0 Explorer over 100 miles with it's new Duralast thermostat. Stays right at half way when warmed up. No up and down swings. Just as important no check engine light.

Hi Billed. I get the genuine Subaru thermostats online for about $20. Usually dealers will gouge you on walk-in sales.

My failsafe from Autozone is still going strong. It has been almost 3 yrs and 100K miles later since I installed it back in 12/30/2008. I still wished I had bought the OEM simply because the price of the OEM and Failsafe are similar in price. Couldn't wait for the dealership to order me one or wait for an online vendor to send me one. Needed it pronto!

Robertshaw USED to be the best, far and away. Robertshaw isn't a company anymore, and the design went to Mr. Gasket they still produce the Robertshaw design. But not the implementation, unfortunately. The last one I bought was so flimsy that I didn't even install it. I try to always go with Stant now.

Either OEM or Stant. My LS400 OEM thermostat lasted almost 200k miles, the replacement Stant is in the engine for more than 70-80k miles and still going strong.

Other cars have original thermostat.

Kuzeh served me well.

Just replaced the original T-stat in a friends '95 Olds Cutlass w/3.1 engine, 245,000 miles, coolant flushed every 36,000 miles, failed open. I wanted an AC-Delco replacement but the $25+ tax dealer price was too much.

Went with the Super-Stant, $10.99 at AAP. Made in U.S.A. very similar build to the original, 500 miles later working just fine. I've had good luck with Super-Stats on GM vehicles in the past as well.

Also, if the Stant T-stat ever fails prematurely my local Advance Auto will exchange or refund no (or minimal) questions asked. Good luck trying to get the dealer to take back a used part.

Delco:

http://www.amazon.com/ACDelco-131-124-Thermostat/dp/compatibility-chart/B000C9C00W



Stant:

http://www.amazon.com/Stant-45899-SuperStat-Thermostat-Fahrenheit/dp/B000C80AH8

Last spring - I replaced the Super Stant thermostat in my Mercury with a Motorcraft thermostat. The heater seems to warm up quicker, but coming down long hills (think the Grapevine or Southern Oregon) the temperature gauge would dip down about 25 percent or so. With the Super Stant thermostat the temp. gauge would stay steady at the half way point under all conditions.

I just replaced my thermostat in my F150. I picked up the premium one at NAPA, part number 555090 because it was $10 less than picking up the Motorcraft at the Ford dealer. The box has Superstat on it, and made by Stant. Well, I open the box up, and the thermostat is stamped Motorcraft with part number 8575. It looked the same as the Motorcraft that I took out. So, it looks like Stant is a supplier for Motorcraft.