That is partly correct. The main purpose is to get your attention before any
overheating actually occurs. Except for loose hose clamps and other causes
of hoses suddenly falling off or pipes rusting through most coolant leaks
start out small. As the coolant falls below the sensor there is still enough
for the pump to maintain circulation and you can usually get off the road
before the cooling system becomes compromised. The other major coolant
system failure is loss of water pump drive. This is covered with the
alternator warning light but the operator has to know to check that. Often
the light comes on and the driver thinks that only the alternator failed and
keeps driving until the overheat-steam-blown hose event occurs.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Edward Maglott
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 8:36 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: flashing coolant light purpose

I thought the reason for the low coolant light was that the temp sender for
the gauge is not in the engine like in a normal car.  It's remote in the
thermostat housing.  So if you get a sudden loss of coolant the gauge might
not even register elevated temp because there would be no hot coolant
hitting the sender.  Is this right?

Thanks,
Edward

At 11:04 AM 9/21/2011, Don Hanson wrote:
>  I probably would not even own my vanagon now if I'd heeded that LED
>warning light, which was flashing when I bought the van near Tacoma and
>drove a few hundred miles home.  In fact, it may *still* be flashing,
>over 65k miles later...I just taped it over, after about 3 frustrating
>attempts to make it work consistently and correctly.