hey Scotty I recently bought a Toyota Camry 1997 with 174000 miles from a private individual and I recently noticed the temperature gauge going down if you turn the heat on but it stays normal if the ac is on or just regular fan
Please don’t double post, thanks.
That's because the heat for your cabin is provided by the engine.
But how do I stop the gauge from going up and down
why do you want to stop it? How much is it moving?
Like I says it drops almost halfway down when I turn the hot air on but it goes back to normal in the middle when we stop or just have the ac on
does it go back up eventually?
If the temperature drop described by you is significant, the reason may be a bad thermostate. Normally, as the engine starts running colder for any reason(in your case - due to additional coolant heat being consumed by the cabin heater), the thermostate would close, at least partially, to compensate for this by letting less coolant run through the car´s main radiator. If the thermostate is not OK, the coolant temperature would in such cases go down sort of uncontrollable.
Another sign of a bad thermostate would be the engine taking longer to warm up, but if you never drove this car with the thermostate working properly, you probably would not notice that this is the case.
Probably needs a thermostat that's a cheap fix
When you turn on the heat, engine coolant is circulating through the second radiator, the heater core. If the temp comes back to normal or a little less, it's OK.
hey Scotty I recently bought a Toyota Camry 1997 with 174000 miles from a private individual and I recently noticed the temperature gauge going down if you turn the heat on but it stays normal if the ac is on or just regular fan