Thermostat to avoid

[Tim_ettinger]

I had a thermostat fail last year that cost me a radiator in a hurry. I guess it was old and probably would have failed anyway. When I changed my timing belt and water pump, I changed to a fail-safe thermostat. Motorad - made in Israel.

I can tell you the fail-safe function of the thermostat works flawlessly. The problem is that it locks itself open at about 181 degrees, or some temperature very close to operating temperature.

[300maximilien]

Most of us recommend buying OEM. The design is more robust.

[M-Pressive]

I had stant in my silver car and had to pull it. OEM is the way to go.

[LUNAT1C]

Stant has been in my car since 2010... no cooling issues since then (outside of my OEM radiator splitting an end tank at 90,000 miles... not the T-stats fault).

[cin993]

All i have to say on this issue is STANT IS GARBAGE. Here is the evidence

Last year, in one job, i replaced my original timing belt, water pump, radiator, hoses, coolant, thermostat, idler pulleys, belts and various o-rings

I tried the Stant thermostat and gasket. everything buttoned up, car started fine but there was a coolant leak from the thermostat housing. Snugged those 2 bolts up-- it's tight as hel in there, pita.
Started the car. Still slight leaking from the t-stat housing.

To stop the leak i snugged the two tstat housing bolts a touch more and this happened-- snapped one head off:

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What a pain in the a$$. had to go in and take stuff apart again to fix this.

When i compared the Stant thermostat gasket to the OEM Mopar gasket and thermostat this is what you see:

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[cin993]

The rounded bottom of the Stant gasket was hitting on the engine block. There should be a flat portion. This was the cause of my leak.

Stant gasket was being bent by the engine block. See the gasket raised lip, it's bent up from hitting the engine block:

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Worse yet, I contacted Stant about this design defect and sent them some pix. Couple weeks later they wanted to talk to me on a conference call.

There was a operations manager, a woman, and a design engineer who answered my questions and confirmed their defective design....yaddah yaddah yaddah

They said is would cost too much to change the stamping die to correct the gasket design. Stant DID NOT offer any solution whatsoever.

Stant did not pull their product from the shelves.

No recall of their defective gasket.

No offer to reimburse me for anything at all.

Stant quality control is piss poor.

Worse yet, once a product defect was highlighted with evidence, Stant did nothing at all to remediate the problem.

STANT IS GARBAGE. Save yourself the headache. Trust me. Go OEM Mopar for your thermstat $25 and gasket $10. Compare for yourself and see the quality difference.

[user97]

Both fail-safe and regular versions of Motorad t-stat have another amazing feature. The jiggle pin is installed backwards. So draining the cooling system becomes a challenge (block takes forever to drain).

Compare OEM or Stant for that matter with Motorad -- the jiggle pin is backwards on the Motorad.

[skinnyg]

Stant is junk! OE isn't much more, thermostat isn't something you want to cheap out on. Coming from a parts advisor for 15 years I'm telling you saving $5 over a aftermarket thermostat isn't worth it. While we are on it buy a factory radiator cap too, the few bucks saved is not worth it.

[adu1982]

Yup I can confirm the bad new rad cap ...thought my old 14 years coolant tank had a crack...I heard hissing ....almost replaced it when I got an OEM cap......no more hissing....bad aftermarket new cap...

[JTROANOKE]

Felpro gasket is fine, btw