Drove back from London this weekend and seeing as it was an evening drive it was fairly cool.
It’s the first time I’ve had the car on a good run for a while. Noticed that at 70 the temp gauge was dropping to about quarter of the way from dead cold, sometimes a little less. If I held the car back and give it some I could get it to go up a bit.
Drove to work this morning and round the houses it sat just beneath centre until I hit open road and it started to climb down again.
I’m assuming this is thermostat getting stuck open or not closing quickly enough? Or is it a sensor? Is there any test to know for sure?
If it’s the thermostat, has anyone got an idea as to how much I’m expecting to get hit by the garage for the replacement? I’d do it myself but having looked at the process it looks like a real pain to do and I can’t afford to mess up what with the car being a daily driver.
Sounds to me like you thermostat is stuck open and over cooling.
If you decide to change it yourself I would recommend trying out the replacement in a glass with boiling water in it to check it moves when exposed to high temperature. I once bought one from Euro Car Parts once and it didn’t solve the same issue you had, I took it off straight away and tested to find it didn’t even work! I then got a Gates one and the car sat bang in the middle at all times as it should.
Cheers, will have a look for that part although I’m struggling to work out exactly what I need seeing as mine’s a 1.8 06, it seems they changed the design at some point.
Is it worth giving it a go myself? I normally do all my own work but this looks like next level fiddly.
Just been down to my regular garage. Will fit it for £67 which is a lot less painful than I was expecting. Think they hate me as a customer because I’m always armed with what needs doing so they can’t inflate the pricing for the unknown
