Hi All -

My 2001 seems to be running cooler than usual lately. Now I don't know if it's out of the ordinary, but I've noticed this winter ("cold" here is about 30 degrees F) that the oil temp barely gets off the peg, even after 20 minutes of moderate/around town driving. The water temp gauge goes up about 1/3, where as normally it would go half-way (straight up). I get decent heat out of the HVAC; not burning hot but OK.

I honestly don't know if this is normal winter temps and I just never noticed it before, or if these low temps are something new. I've had the car since new and it has 93K on it. Anyone have any thoughts?

TIA

 

Sounds like my car and I don't think it's that bad. Better then overheating!

 

Mine does the same thing. I believe its just the thermostat being either clogged or acting up. When I do my timing belt this summer I'll be replacing the thermostat hoping to fix this issue.

 

Agreed, my 2000 1.8 is doing the same thing. I think the thermostat is stuck open though because it also takes quite a while to warm up. If it was clogged wouldn't it be overheating?

 

Thanks for the perspectives, guys. I was thinking it may be the thermostat, too.

It's probably cheap insurance to change it out and do the coolant, right? My owners manual says that the coolant never needs to be changed, but I can't believe it would hurt anything to do so -- as long as I use the proper stuff.

 

thats interesting that you brought this up i just opned up a new thread about this just 2 days ago named " would you say this is normal?" i actually started to notice that same exact thing with my car just recently its been around 30degree here also and the needle does not go all the way to the half mark its one dash towards the C and i noticed that at stoplights it goes almost near the half mark but thats about it does yours do that?

 

my car is the same and i think it's because of the fan that is constantly working keeping the engine cool. it is really cold here in michigan,which is like 20-30F but my gauge reaches the half mark by the time i get to school or home a 15-20min ride.

 

I guess I didnt mean clogged but something is keeping mine stuck open because even after a 15min drive its still not warmed up. In fact after driving for 3 hours up and down the hills of WV and MD my temp gauge was sitting on the lowest cold mark.

 

That sounds about as warm as my water temp gets... I haven't really noticed if it's varying any once it does get warmed up, though.

A few days ago I took a 300 mile drive and neither the oil temp or the water temp every got up to what I would consider to be normal levels. It was all highway driving in 25-30F weather, though, so I assumed that was part of it.