Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultramaroon
Uggh. I had no idea that the temp gauge was a liar. All this time I thought the temp control was rock solid.
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I was watching the gauge when I went out to lunch and comparing it to my reading in Torque. The dash gauge hit the middle at 180° and stayed there. I know from my prior experience that it stays there at least to 210°. I don't know how much higher you have to go before the needle moves off normal. I suspect there's a point at which it jumps up above normal without showing as overheating, then another threshold where you get a warning light, so that you get some kind of indication that your system needs attention before you reach a dangerous temp.
I do understand why they've done this. Most newer cars have this same type of "gauge." Most cars also have a range of temps that are considered normal rather than a single expected running temp, and the actual coolant temp can change depending on a number of different factors. In the past some people would see their temp gauge showing a little hotter than usual and think it needed service when it didn't. At the same time, if you take away the temperature gauge altogether and just provide an idiot light, you don't give the driver any indication of when the motor is still warming up or when it's above the normal range but not quite overheating yet. And I think people like seeing a gauge and imagining they know what it's telling them. People tend not to trust idiot lights.
So you get a weird hybrid of a gauge and idiot light to keep certain drivers from freaking out about the car running hot when it's still within the normal range. We run into this often over on the Cherokee board. The center of the normal range for an XJ Cherokee is 210°, which is rather hot compared to a lot of other vehicles. Sometimes someone will buy one and post a panicked message on the board that his Jeep is overheating, when it's rock solid on 210. Or you'll get someone freaking out that his temp went to 220° out on a slow speed rock crawl, when that's still considered normal. Having a hybrid idiot gauge instead of a real temp gauge would help some of the more paranoid types from becoming unnecessarily agitated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by go_a_way1
My hope would be to keep oil/coolent temps down a little in traffic. Now I think about it, it seems kinda pointless haha!!
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Weirdly enough, it doesn't seem to matter. When my coolant temp hit 180° earlier, my oil temp was at 150°. If I go flog it at high RPM for a while, I can get the oil temp up to 225°, yet the coolant temp will still be under 195° with the A/C on.
Even though it relies on the vehicle's own sensors, running Torque and monitoring coolant and oil temps can give you an interesting picture of what's actually going on in your car. The only thing better would be to run separate aftermarket coolant and oil temperature gauges, but that's really overkill unless you track your car.