Sidekick water pump failure warning

I had a Suzuki Sidekick JX. The water pump broke and dumped all the

coolant out. With no coolant to measure the temperature of, the engine

temperature gauge never moved even though the engine overheated and

warped the head, essentially destroying the engine.



Of course, if I was informed that the water pump failed I would have

stopped the engine immediately, probably saving the engine.



Is this not poor engineering? Surely, the engine temperature gauge

should inform the driver when the water pump fails?



Thanks as always.

The same thing would have happened if you blew a radiator or heater hose. The only indication of the water loss is the temp gauge quickly heading up then dropping back down to normal or below normal as the sending unit runs dry. The only way to catch this is to see the spike and drop but drivers are rarely observing the gauges that closely.

Chalk this up to bad luck.