Whatever.  I like having the light to warn me of pending problems so
that I can head them off.  Like when my water pump went out.  I knew
before the engine overheated that I'd lost coolant.  Dave Mc

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Don Hanson wrote:

> I don't think they are needed.  I use my temp gauge to keep track of
> what's happening in my cooling system.  I check my coolant and oil
> every
> time I fill up..Well, .almost every time.  Another check, if you think
> the
> temp gauge is not good enough to tell is to flip on the heater for a
> second.  If you can't get warm air and your temp gauge is being weird,
> you
> should stop and check the fluid level in the coolant system.
>  You can run an inline with low coolant for a lot of miles.  I took
> mine to
> California and back with a leaky head...I drove till the temp started
> rising
> (usually a couple of tanks of gas) then I'd top up the
> coolant...3000miles
> like that, before I finally replaced the head gasket in about 4hrs,
> motor
> in the van.  I may have been lucky but according to urban ledgend, the
> inline VW motor is really hard to damage...
>
>   The "belt AND suspenders" type, they will probably not agree.
> Probably
> have good reasons why you can't be safe without one..They may be
> right.
>
>   Mine is taped over so you can't even see it inside my instruments
> It was
> a constant blinker when I got the van....easier than trying to
> McGuiver a
> fix on my 1.8liter inline, which had no coolant level light before it
> came
> to my van.
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 11:57 AM, neil n  wrote:
>
>> Hi all.
>>
>> Like most, I check oil/coolant almost every day when on long trips.
>> But.....
>>
>> In the event of a sudden coolant loss, have others found that this
>> light gave enough warning so they could pull over in time to prevent
>> the engine from over heating? (assuming there's somewhere safe nearby
>> to pull over)
>>
>> I realize my Westy's Jetta engine has different coolant
>> plumbing/paths, but if it's useful on the WBX, I'll read up on relays
>> and wire one up.
>>
>> Neil.
>>
>> --
>> Neil Nicholson '81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco"
>>
>> http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines
>>