Coolant temp sensor broken and the gauge works?

[Money pit Beretta]

Ok my temp sensor was leaking so I tried to pry off the connector and the sensor broke. SES light came on and I thought that was strange and then driving to the parts store the gauge was working normal. How the hell dose that happen?
Just so your sure it's the one near the T-stat. 1995 3100.

[1988GTU]

You have two. One in the rear head and one in the LIM. the LIM controls what the PCM sees and the one in the head controls the cluster (what you see) .

[Money pit Beretta]

Oh, I thought it was the other way around. Thought that the one in the head would be better for the computer because it is near the cylinders.

[Money pit Beretta]

Fixed. Car is running better so I think that the old one had a coating on it.

[3X00-Modified]

Well when that one does die it affects the temp that the ECM thinks the engine is running at.. it shows up with a -40 reading which typically happens when its bad or disconnected then the ECM will run the engine way rich and performance will suffer bad.

[scannerman]

yep also the cooling fan will run constantly.

[Money pit Beretta]

My power was down some and the MPG was kind of bad. Thought it was just bad injectors. The gauge read normal. That I know of this car has never had a cooling system flush.

When I went to the parts store it was running very rough. I was able to set the broken part back on just to drive my GF home.