This is not story about hhr's but someone may come a cross this. One of my fellow firefighters asked to help him install a thermostat in his jeep. He has had a intermittent over heating problem.

He handed me the thermostat and the first thing that caught my eye was the words fail safe thermostat on the box.
He was told by the salesmen that this stat will fail to a full open position if the engine overheats. (Never herd of that before)

So ok I help him put the thermostat in with no problems. Two days later his jeep overheated again only this time he tells my he was in traffic. So I showed him how to check the cooling fan and sure enough it was not working.

We fixed the fan problem. it was a bad fan module but his fail safe thermostat was now lock I the full open "fail safe position"

As we learned once the fail safe thermostat locks in the fail safe position it will not reset and must be replaced. Lesion learned after changing out the thermostat a second time he will not let a salesman talk him into the new fancy fail safe thermostat again.

 

Well I thought I'd heard of everything, obviously one of these thermostats would cause havoc in an HHR, hopefully they don't make one that fits.

Maybe "Fail Stuck" would be a more appropriate name for them.

 

I just had to change my thermostat a couple of weeks ago. Temp guage not working and --- on the DIC for COOLANT TEMP. The code was P0128. I told the Chevrolet Dealership service guy I was happy that the thermostat did not stick closed and he told me the new thermostats only stick open unless there is debris in the system that might get caught in the thermostat and cause it to stick in a position other that open. This was warranty repair.

 

first word is correct FAIL!! I have changed more of these out from guys who go into a store and has no clue about cooling systems these stats usually fail within a few days as the cooling system burps out any trapped air.

 

I would put the original thermostat back in the Jeep since it wasn't the problem and take the failsafe back for a refund.....