I tested the ECU codes today, and one of the errors it gave me was for water thermo sensor. I'm not sure what could cause this, the sensor is there and its hooked up. So if the sensor was malfunctioning, what kind of problems would i be experiencing?

 

When mine was malfunctioning I notice a wavy idle, took like 7-15 secs to startup, and smoke on startup. I don't know if this is what cause all of that but as soon as I replaced it, everything went away. Hope this helps.

 

A bad water thermo sensor will cause all sorts of problems.
It's located behind the water pump housing and below the alternator. It's connected via a green injector type connector. If the UIM has been meesed with and put back on, the wire may have pulled out. There's 2 wires that goes into the connector.

 

amazing I'm experiencing all of that except for the smoke on startup. I'm gonna check out the thing tomorrow.

Before I look at it, is there a way of testing the thing without ripping off the intake manifold? Its gonna be a pain to take off the manifold, and I'm probably gonna have to drain the coolant to get to the sensor.

 

YOu can test it by gaining access to the ECU. With a multimeter, check the voltage at the appropriate pin (I dont have the pinout handy, but its in the FSM). If the voltage is way out, or missing, you definately have a problem.

Jarrett

 

ok I checked the voltage and it was around 4.3 volts. Keep in mind the engine was off when I tested this but the ignition was on "on". So that voltage seems to be way out of whack, so I guess I can assume I have a bad sensor. Can anybody confirm my therory before I take off the intake manifold.... again.

 

Ok heres an update. I pulled off the intake manifold again today and found that the water thermosensor is ok, but the wires going up to it are bad. The brown wire had completely ripped its socket out of the connector and the other wire had the insulation cut. So only one of the wire was working.

Now heres the question, where can I get a new connector for the thermosensor? I've checked junkyards for connectors before, and most cars dont have the harness, or wont let you take a connector off the harness withou buying the entire harness.

 

Cut the wires back and solder new ones in. Then solder the wires onto the sensor pins. Sure, itll be a bit more work to remove but you wont have to worry about a shitty connection. It would take me less time/money to solder and resolder it 50 times than it would to find new connectors.

 

I dont really see how you could solder them on directly without melting the plastic on the sensor with the soldering iron. I suppose if you found one hell of a tiny *** soldering tip ypu might be able to do it, but I cant solder very well at all. I had to do that on my alternator plug (S5) and I melted plasic everywhere.

So soldering the wires on is not a very practical option for me. Still, is there anywhere I can get a new conncector?

 

bump

 

The water thermosensor is two pronged, right? So, go to Radio Shack, get some female connectors that will slide onto the thermosensor, and wire those up to the harness wires. Pretty? Not as pretty as an OEM connector, but it'll work.