Hey guys I frequent tf but this is my first post about a car. I have some questions regarding my 05 Chevy cobalt its 4 cyl. not supercharged. Rolled 100000 miles the other day and seemed to be running okay. My wife started it this morning and I looked out the window and it kind of looked like it was smoking a little, never noticed that before. Also I was sitting in the drive way earlier and it seemed to be running around 218 degrees, never noticed that either... Now for the great news I have never tuned up the car... I am sure its time to. But I need to know if that temp is acceptable in this car. I am a mechanic, but I work on boats 2 and 4 stroke engines. I definitely cannot afford to take this care to a Chevy dealer to get raped... But I think if someone steers me in the right direction I will be okay doing it myself. Any help would be nice. Thanks.

 

180-190 is good

 

this is a fuel injected motor and the constant has always been around 193 to 210ish i work on 350 chevy's often in Inboards or I/Os and they usually do run around 180ish or less because of the thermostats and the way the motors com bust fuel. So I do think it is high but I do not know how high. Anyone here that works on these 4 bangers daily that could give me an idea?

 

218 is fine . The pcm doesnt command the fans untill 223-230. This is straight from GM,I work on these things all the time. All GM's run over at least 214. The lowest command temp I know of is 214. Could have just been condinsation