Yep from Indianapolis also.

The vehicle seems to need a road speed (and clear air) of about 30 mph to keep itself cool, without the fan(s) coming on.

But as far as how your gauge is reading, and your description of how the car is behaving, it sure mirrors mine!

 

Your car is working fine. GM gauges and hot engines are normal. lol. Now if it's getting close to the RED you have a problem. The gauge is red on the end for a reason. STOP!

 

Ok, so I'm feeling good about the temperature now. Thank you all very much..

One other thing that happened lately, and maybe this should be a new thread, but this car sat all winter, and I just started actually driving it like a month ago. When I first got it out and drove it, it was missing badly and the engine light came on, saying cylinder 3 was missing when I got it checked...I drove it around a little more and it came out of it and was running perfectly.

Until yesterday on the way home it started missing again on acceleration just for a short time, then came out of it and was fine today. Just curious if you guys think that sounds more like injectors or something else? The plugs/wires are relatively new, maybe 20k miles on them... I know these things have intake/head gasket problems and after the whole temp thing it made me nervous.

Thanks again,
Lee

 

coil pack on 3 may be getting tired and taking a break once in a while. could do a quick plug wire check and on a dark night start er up and open the hood. have a look around the wires and such for spark.

 

Used to have a thermostat that was stuck open. Car only got to 1/4th (if that lol). Changed that, put a new Radiator in (because the previous owner used Well Water.. **** sediment), and now I see about 1/4th on the low, up to about half between the middle and 3/4th, as it should. If you see it ever go about 3/4th, then you probably have an issue. Just keep an eye on it as usual.

 

everything seems to be working fine for your car, the reason you never got up to 1/2 on the temp gauge was because u were using dexcool. these cars were designed to use the dexcool antifreeze, which is the worst thing to put in ur car because it has been found to eat up intake gaskets, but GM refuses to admit it, anyways the dexcool normally keeps ur engine cool enough so that it doesnt ever need the cooling fans to come on,the stuff does work good for keeping ur engine cool, but whatever you do DONT use it, the regualr coolant and water cant remove the heat from the engine as much as its producing, so the temps goes up at stop lights or idling, then the fans kick on at 220, which is really high temp for fans to come on, why? because they were only spose to be backup the dexcool was spose to cool the engine off enough to never use the fans, thats why the temp goes above halfway, then the fans come on,

 

Not trying to pick on you, but man, where in the hell are you getting this crap information?
Dexcool has nothing to do with keeping the engine cooler on it's own, nor does it keep the engine cool without a cooling fan.
Dexcool was specially formulated to help prevent corrosion of the aluminum engine components, and it can't be mixed with other conventional coolants, or sludging will occur..
Dexcool is an extended life coolant, and some car owners thought that meant "forever". Dexcool still requires regular maintenance/flushing just like other coolants, and as long as you do that, you're fine. Dexcool got a bad rap because car owners didn't follow good service intervals, and the stuff depleted itself and turned acidic, as any other coolant would under the circumstances.
The engine cooling fan turns on when it does because that's when the computer tells the fans to kick on, as GM designed it to work.
Dexcool informational reading

 

Lol. I am glad someone else said it. I was going to ignore this thread until then. Camaro69 is 100% right. However when I flushed my entire system I replaced it with the green Prestone formulated to work with all engines * according to the bottle*. It was just something I was personally more comfortable with. My poor cars cooling system was severely neglected over the years. When I went thru changing parts I changed quite a few gaskets, water pump, radiator, thermostat, hoses.... The car runes soooo nice and cool now, even in the excessive heat. Lucky for me they at least had enough sense to get oil changes, the internals look great.

 

Just my 2 cents, i am a mechanic and have owned a few gm cars, and could never really figure out why GM designed the cooling fans to come on so late (220) which on a 95 monte is 3/4 of the way on the gauge, lead me to beleive my car was overheating which to me 220 is overheating, i like my cars to run at 180 like everyother car, so why did gm design the cooling fans to come on so late on dexcool engines only?

 

i figure the engine is made to run at that temp. performance, expansion of parts and all. you should be able to tune it or have it tuned to run at a lower temp if you wish.