I hadn't given it too much thought; it seems like it causes more problems than it fixes.

From what I gather, the temp compensator board takes the (linear?) input from the temp sensor, and flattens it near the center. When it works the needle spends most of it's life near the center of the gauge, making the owner feel happy that they own such a precision piece of machinery -regulating the heat to within 5 degrees or so.

If I'm right, then I'm rather pissed off. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having a steady temp needle, but I HATE the idea of instrumentation purposely giving your wrong data. Damn trick!

I would absolutely rather know what the engine is *really* doing. Does anyone have any experience with eliminating the compensating board alltogether.

Any thoughts?

Am I totally off base on what the board does to start with?

Grr..

As an aside...

Volvo may be guilty, but they aren't as bad as Ford...My pappy has a 1993 Ford F150 that has an oil gauge in the cockpit. I noticed that the needle is ALWAYS 2/3 of the way to "high". After a bit of research I find out that the gauge is indeed real, but the "sending unit" is just a switch with a resistor in series. If you've got enough oil pressure to close the switch, then the gauge reads 2/3. Junk, junk, junk! (the truck caught on fire this week, too)

That's all for my nightly rant.

-Steve