What happens when you drive with no thermistat?

[DbD]

What would happen?

overheat, overcool????????

let me know,DbD

[1991S13]

I unknowingly ran mine for maybe 3 months without a thermostat. It was during the end of summer/beginning of winter, so it ran in hot and cold temperatures, and it never overheated. In the warm weather it ran like normal, temp gauge would be right where it should be. In the winter though, it would never warm up. The longest trips I would make on a weekly basis were 45 minutes to my mom's house, and when it was cold the temp gauge would barely get past cold. Without a thermostat I dont think overheating would be a problem, and I have never heard of anything called overcooling. Worst thing I found from not having one is I drove for like 30 minutes before I got a little bit of heat.

[180fan]

Your mileage will go to the toilet. With gas prices now, that should be something to consider. Your ECU will keep the motor in a fast idle state until it warms up, until then the ecu will dump more gas to try to warm up the motor. AKA no thermo = dumb for daily driver.

[2_Liter_Turbo]

Also an engine is meant to be operated at a certain temperature. Everything is designed around this. Metal expands when hot, including pistons and the like. This is why it is bad to over rev your engine when it is cold. There is too much play between everything ( gap around the piston and the cylinder wall, etc.) so running without a thermostat will acually put a great amount of wear on your motor. I see people all the time at my work (I work at a part store) run without a thermostat and come back later complaining about burning oil or their car just not running right. I would never support running without a thermostat. There is a reason for it being there in the first place.

[benemorius]

In the interest of strength in multiple opinions:

I concur with the above posts, and would only add the technical explanation which was left out - in case anybody is curious. The purpose of a thermostat is to restrict the flow of engine coolant until the engine/coolant reaches a certain temperature. This causes the engine to reach "operating temperature" much faster. And as previously stated - the less an engine runs outside it's operating temperature, the better. It won't kill your engine over the weekend while you're waiting for payday, but if you're just looking to save an extra [insert cost of new tstat here] because it isn't 100% necessary, please reconsider.

[DawgMode]

well i got a couple of friends down here in the bahamas who took theirs out for years now with no problems...in fact wen we go on "runs"(crusin round the outskirts of the island at an avg of like 120mph)...with it out the engines stopped over heating...plus you can feel the difference...but just like wats stated above if u live in cold climates DONT remove it