In a message dated 10/5/98 2:10:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Mike.Kasun@ENTEX.COM writes:

<< After many hours of diagnosing our blinking temp sensor on our 83.5
      Westy- we have flushed it, replaced thermostat, sensor and water pump
      and replaced rear heater core( it was leaking) I think we finally are
      making some headway. We took it for a 100 mile drive yesterday and
      everything seemed fine. The temp guage was half way to the LED. Once
      we got on the freeway it started goin down. Now its startin to get
      cold here in Ohio but is the temp guage supposed to do this? It went
      down as far as it can go at some points. Is this normal? It would
      start going back up as soon as I got off the freeway to "normal"
      levels. After the trip I looked things over and everyting seemed fine.
      Thats a lot of cold air hitting the front of the van but I cant
      believe that it would register nothing at all. We are using a very
      measured 50/50 solution as well and the coolant level is still where
      it was when we started. Any ideas? >>

Sounds like your thermostat is etiher stuck open, or (not sure if you can do
this) inserted backwards. My Jetta suffered the same conditions when the
thermostat stuck. No operating temperature meant poor milage and no heat. Get
it checked pronto.

gmbulley
cary, nc