2002 2.7l prerunner temperature question

I bought an 02 prerunner 2.7l reg cab with 193000 miles yesterday. I got it from a dealership that supposedly did a 27 point inspection. (Whatever that is). Today on way to work I noticed the temp gauge just wandering back and forth between 1/4 cold and 3/4 hot. So I really payed attention when I left work and after 5-10 minutes it went from cold to 1/2 way hot. My heat would not get warm till a few minutes after that and the gauge was floating back and forth between almost cold to almost hot. The heat got cold again then warmed back up. I think the heat stayed warm to hot the rest of the trip. There seems to be no pattern to temp. I sat with truck running in parking lot at gym for 10 minutes and never noticed it overheating. When I left gym about an hour later it was cold again and warmed up about halfway home. I think heat stayed warm but temp needle still floated around. Any ideas?

 

Thermostat maybe?

 

bring it back and let them fix it, you never know if its simple or more involved so let them fix it.

if its a bad sensor its not a big deal but if its a bad gage in the dash cluster, you don't want that headache on your dime.

by the way my truck takes like 5 minutes to warm up so what you are seeing oin time for the heater to start putting out sounds about right

by the way, those 27 point inspections mean the check if the radiator and oil is full then spends 25 minutes sitting on their butts before bringing it back so you think they were checking everything.

before you bring it in I suggest you do your own checks on tranny fluid and power steering fluid as well as check the condition of your belts and see if the idler pulleys wiggle, if they do they need replacing. make sure they take care of whatever you find needs doing.

later on when you have more time, pull the tires and check all your front end parts and brake pads, none of that will have been checked by them and at 200k miles im sure most of it will need replacing.

 

The dealer I bought it from is a chevrolet dealership over an hour away. I really don't wanna mess with them if I don't have to.

 

that's on you but I would never risk a possible electrical or instrument problem on a truck I just bought.

sometimes the simple things get very expensive so get them to fix the gage issue and the rest you can sort out on your own

 

It was low on coolant so I added some and it looks like radiator is leaking at the top. So I called the dealership and they said to bring it in and they would make it right. So we will see.