Temp gauge
 

Well I was messing with some wires not long ago and I accidentally clipped the wire for the coolant temp. I feel like the gauge is reading wrong. After I start to drive around and it gets warmed up it only goes to the second tick (the one after the coldest one). I was wondering if anyone's sits higher once warmed up?

mine's just above the second tick on one of my SC2's, and halfway betw 2nd and 3rd tick on the other SC2.

Sounds within the realm of normalicitousness

Don't think the temp dash gauge is too likely to go bad (have never read about this on an S car but anything's possible

if you're not having hard starting/restarting, high idle, or poor gas mileage, I wouldn't worry about it.

If you want to be anal retentive you can replace the ECTS and connector.

Okay. I just thought it was odd but I guess its normal. Thanks for the information bro.

I'll go along with Derf's answer. I only have 1 Saturn and it is a 94 SC2 and I have owned it since 1996. It has experianced the problems associated with the sending units, real over heating problems due to a damaged catalytic converter which can be extremely confusing as to what is going on and driven hard in mountain areas in triple digit tempertures. I have seen the gauge a tick above dead cold and actually be in the Red Zone at the other end and be so dang hot that there were dash board indications come on that I have never seen before and have not since. But
Not Boiling over
It has a tendancy now that all of the above have some how been identified and actually fixed, that the gauge when the car is fully warm seems to run a tick above half scale.
The bottom line I think is a car from the era where gauges were not terribly accurate in the first place and it must be one hell of a design, I know I have gotten the car very hot on occaision and nothing broke, on the other hand, I also know on occasion that the gauge was sort of a joke.
I am not sure I really trust the thing, but I don't think you are having a real problem!

My '93 SW runs "cold" too ... around the second tic. My '02 L200 and wife's '09 Aura both run slightly less than half gauge. I think UnclJohn's got it pegged --> "the nature of the beast"

Mine runs pretty much around the second tic too. I don't know if the radiator has ever been replaced in the 297,000 miles that are on the odometer either!

Hey - that comes under the heading --> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

FUBARed radiators will cause an engine to run really hot, not cold

A sequal to gauge readings.
As mentioned earlier, despite the fact I have owned my SC2 coupe for about 16 years, it has been driven in Arizona which ranges from temperaturs from about freezing to 120 degrees. That range stresses the cooling system of any car.
While at times it has not been driven regularly, it has had its share of cooling system problems some confused by termperature ranges, some confused by the impact of the improper sensors in the cylinder head and some confused by a number of years it was suffering from a partially plugged catalytic converter. All of these spread out over time due to lack of regular use made if difficult to isolate a root problem for apparently running hot, either real or imagined depending on the circumstances. One thing lead to another an everything was taken care of eventually except for one thing. Occaisionaly I would be aware of a coolant leakage. It was not much, it did not seem to effect anything and every so often spread out over time I would need to top of the pressurised water tank with a pint or so of water.
The gauge did not seem to work really well but it stopped really getting super hot. But on a hot day making a long run at Freeway speeds and/or climbing hills while running the A/C the gauge reading would climb to the upper ranges. It always cooled down and never indicated a problem that I had to worry about, it just did not read very well, bothersome but not problematic
until
just after Christmas this year I discovered the pressurised tank for the coolant system had a tiny pin hole leak in it. And when I pursued the discovery I found that while I was suspecting the radiator to be leaking all this time and was waiting for it to realy need replacing before I went to the effort to do it, all this time it was that dang tank . It would leak enough water to no longer be where the hole was and there was still plenty of water in the radiator and it more or less caused no problems.
But this week end I took the car to Flagstaff, up hill 7 or 8 thousand feet, 7% grades, about 80 degrees so the A/C was running and a 75 mph state speed limit.
This stresses the cooling system.
And for the first time since I have owned the car the heat gauge sat at the first hash mark on the gauge barely moving the whole trip!
And I figure out why?
With a pin hole leak, it never built up any pressure.
With less pressure cooling system efficiency is down the toilet.
So when pressed, the engine would run hot.
Amazing. All of the last 4 or 5 years this thing has been running hot with a partially damaged cooling system going undetected and it still did not hurt anything. Now that the tank no longer leaks and cooling system pressure is holding correct the bloody thing runs down the road with gauge reading steady and indicating no problems.
And that is on a 1994 car.
They were quite a car when they were new. I liked them then. I like this one now.
And no, I do not think that in my opinion Saturn put cars in the showroom that were better than the orignial S car. And mostly as Badge Engineered or Corporate Platform packages or what ever they decided to call them just to have something called a Saturn in the show room, sorry the replacements just did not appeal to me.
But that is my opinion. It is too bad, the original concept was quite a package. It is even more bad that GM a company dedicated to design of cars, automobiles that were intended to be sold, morphed into a corporation that decided that closing factories and eliminating production was the road that needed to be traveled to be profitable.
Dang Bean Counters.