Generally speaking, does anyone else notice that the Audi A4 takes longer to warm up and reach operating temperature than other cars?

Other cars that I've driven take a few minutes and they sit on dead middle. My Audi will only move a little bit if I take it for a short drive on a relatively cold morning and on highway driving will sit under 90c.

 

Dead middle on the gauge is very subjective. With that said...

It was about 0 degrees this morning. I let my car warm up for about 8 minutes. I went back out, and the heat wasn't on yet. My drive is about 7-9 minutes, and by the time I got there, my temp gauge was not all the way warm.

On extremely cold days, I've had it where my 7-9 minute drive doesn't even register a temp on the gauge. During the same drive in the summer, not only is the coolant all the way warmed up half way through the drive, the oil registers above 150 degrees too. That means full boost on the way to school

 

Generally my does take longer than some (newer) cars, however if it takes too long it may be your thermostat is failing. But then again it's hasn't been above 30 degrees in a longggg time here

 

How can you tell if your thermostat is failing?
It's 27c here at the moment. My car was cold, I started it and after about 10 minutes idling, the temperature was about 70c on the coolant temperature gauge. Feeling both hoses, the top was warmer than the bottom hose and they both gradually increased in temperature.

 

if 27c is 81 F, then you are pretty warm to begin with. is 70 C (160 F) right in the middle of your temp gauge, because that is where it should stay.

 

90c is the middle of my temp gauge and that's where it should sit when it's been driving in hot weather or in traffic.

When the car is warming up, should both radiator hoses be gradually getting warmer or should one of them be pretty cold and then get very warm once the thermostat opens? On my car after idling for 10 minutes, both hoses get gradually warmer with the top one being hotter than the bottom one but to reach operating temperature, I would have to drive around a fair bit to get it there.

 

Is there anything wrong with your car? Longer to warm up? feeling hotter, not as hot? how do you measure any of this? relax, something real will break soon.

 

I know this is gonna sound naive, but I read in my owners manual that its better to avoid letting the car idle to warm it up. It states you should hop in and drive it right away as the optimum operating temp won't be reached until you've driven about 2.5 miles, and makes no reference to how fast you drive it. Seems crazy to me so I still allow a few minutes for warm up but I'm in Texas, south Texas to be exact and it doesn't usually get very cold down here. 26 degrees is about the lowest we've been this "winter."

 

I normally wait until my idle drops down to normal, before driving off. Has nothing to do with my car warming up.

I just want to let the emissions do its thing, first. I also want the oil to lubricate the engine, before i drive off.


I notice that when i drive, it gets warmer quicker than just idling, which makes sense.