Modern cars often use ECU controlled coolant thermostats. They operate a tiny heater in the stats wax chamber that quickly opens same to be ahead of the game when there is a sudden high demand placed on engine.
The ECU controlled stats with heater elements were used on the first generation Duratec engines. By the time the engines were put in our Morgans around 2005 (4/4 and +4) Ford had already phased these out on the 4 cylinder Duratecs although the ECU input still remains, albeit unconnected.
