Hello Everyone. I was able to get a nice deal on a 2016 500X Lounge, that I hope to be using as my daily driver and eventually pass to my daughter in a couple of years. But, a question first -

Please excuse me if the following is stupid or has been answered elsewhere on the forum. This is my first car with an air-cooled engine. I believe that the Lounge has the 2.64 I4 Multi-Air (non-turbo?) engine. After driving about 45 minutes (mostly highway) and getting home, I noticed that the hood of the car was EXTREMELY hot - hotter than any other car I've driven - basically scalding hot. It was particularly hot on the passenger side of the hood. I popped the hood but barely got it latched before it started burning my fingers, and felt the engine heat smack me in the face.

Now I do live in Phoenix, Arizona, and it was about 110F driving home, but should it be that hot to the touch? The car itself seemed fine on the ride. The temperature indicator stayed smack in the middle of the gauge, the A/C worked just fine, it drove nicely, and everything else seemed great. Just the hood was so freakin HOT.

Will this damage the hood? Will I be able to take it on extended trips (read 4 or 5 hours) and worry about it overheating? (I don't want my girls to have to deal with that). Anything else I should worry about?

I basically have 3-days and 100 miles to determine if I want to keep or return it. I really WANT to like this car, and my girls love the styling. But I'm just worried that the hot engine/hood is not normal and there will be problems down the road.

Thanks so much in advance for any advice...

Kind Regards -

Hello and welcome!

You should keep in mind that this is mostly a UK/EU forum and since your engine (2.4 Tigershark) is US exclusive, folks don't have much info on it around here.

Having said that, I happen to have exactly the same car, because I bought it used from the US. I can confirm that the hood might get quite hot to the touch even here in Lithuania where we normally don't get temperatures higher than 35ºC (95F), so if it was around 43ºC (110F), as you describe, it could indeed heat up significantly. But it should be alright as long as the coolant indicator stays in the middle. The engine cover and the hood should withstand high temperatures.

However, I'm not an engine enthusiast, so probably you should wait for a more competent opinion.

That's the Chrysler 2.4 Tigershark engine - it's definitely NOT air-cooled!

I'd generally trust the temperature gauge - but if you want to check this, get a cheap OBDII reader so you can get live readings of oil and water temperatures from the car. Some gauges are 'damped' so they don't waver around and alarm the driver if they get a little hot.