With her new clutch, cam belt/water pump and a jolly good "going over" Becky - our 2010 Dynamic Eco 1.2 Panda - is settling into her roll as "support" vehicle very nicely (Family support that is).
I've been aware from very early on - so over a year now - there's been an "anomaly" in her coolant temperature gauge readings. From a cold start it behaves normally, that is top hose stays cold for a while then suddenly gets hot as the thermostat opens but it opens when the needle is roughly 1/4 way up the scale (I would expect 1/2?) It will stay there all the time you are driving around the town unless you are stuck in very heavy traffic when it will slowly climb to a bit over 1/2 way when the rad fan cuts in and prevents overheating. when you get moving again it drops slowly back to the 1/4 (or thereabouts) position. So this is just what you would expect the behavior to be except that the thermostat seems to be opening too early so not allowing the temp to get high enough under normal driving. I'm going to fit a new thermostat which I think should sort this. (wish I'd noticed it before doing the Cam belt as I could have done the thermostat at the same time and avoided wasting some of the new coolant).
Now for the "strange" bit. Last Sunday we, Becky and I, went out to the SICD - we had a lovely time. On the way out there was heavy traffic on the Queensferry road, through the Barnton roundabout and out on to the A90 dual carriageway. The temp gauge went up to around 2/3rds and I heard the fan running - good, that's what it should do - but when we got going, at a nice steady 55/60 mph the gauge settled to just over 1/2 (normal temp) I was expecting it to drop back to it's previous 1/4. I branched off onto the B924 South Queensferry and so on out to Hopetoun House - nice gentle country roads. The temp stayed at 1/2 - normal - all the way. Some 3 hours later I returned home by the same route. The temp gauge went to 1/2 way within a couple of miles of leaving the venue and stayed there all the way home. I've since been out around the town in her a couple of times and the temp gauge is back (even after maybe a half hour of running in normal free flowing traffic) to hovering around the 1/4 mark!
In my experience it's not unusual for a thermostat to "run cold" when it starts to fail, or even just stay open so the engine never really gets up to temp at all. I'm about 99.99% sure that a new thermostat will sort this but I'm really puzzled as to why it behaves like this. By the way I'm absolutely certain there are no airlocks in the system anywhere. Anyone got a theory?
I've been aware from very early on - so over a year now - there's been an "anomaly" in her coolant temperature gauge readings. From a cold start it behaves normally, that is top hose stays cold for a while then suddenly gets hot as the thermostat opens but it opens when the needle is roughly 1/4 way up the scale (I would expect 1/2?) It will stay there all the time you are driving around the town unless you are stuck in very heavy traffic when it will slowly climb to a bit over 1/2 way when the rad fan cuts in and prevents overheating. when you get moving again it drops slowly back to the 1/4 (or thereabouts) position. So this is just what you would expect the behavior to be except that the thermostat seems to be opening too early so not allowing the temp to get high enough under normal driving. I'm going to fit a new thermostat which I think should sort this. (wish I'd noticed it before doing the Cam belt as I could have done the thermostat at the same time and avoided wasting some of the new coolant).
Now for the "strange" bit. Last Sunday we, Becky and I, went out to the SICD - we had a lovely time. On the way out there was heavy traffic on the Queensferry road, through the Barnton roundabout and out on to the A90 dual carriageway. The temp gauge went up to around 2/3rds and I heard the fan running - good, that's what it should do - but when we got going, at a nice steady 55/60 mph the gauge settled to just over 1/2 (normal temp) I was expecting it to drop back to it's previous 1/4. I branched off onto the B924 South Queensferry and so on out to Hopetoun House - nice gentle country roads. The temp stayed at 1/2 - normal - all the way. Some 3 hours later I returned home by the same route. The temp gauge went to 1/2 way within a couple of miles of leaving the venue and stayed there all the way home. I've since been out around the town in her a couple of times and the temp gauge is back (even after maybe a half hour of running in normal free flowing traffic) to hovering around the 1/4 mark!
In my experience it's not unusual for a thermostat to "run cold" when it starts to fail, or even just stay open so the engine never really gets up to temp at all. I'm about 99.99% sure that a new thermostat will sort this but I'm really puzzled as to why it behaves like this. By the way I'm absolutely certain there are no airlocks in the system anywhere. Anyone got a theory?
