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Anyone else's cars have this odd behavior? My car's outside temperature gauge seems to read high when I first start it, before setting down to the actual outside temperature after driving a few minutes. The cooling fan kicks on immediately, even if the engine temp isn't at full operating temp. This was taken right after startup, and the cooling fan was on. The car was mostly at temperature, since it was parked in the parking garage for only a couple hours. The engine is a V12 TT, if it's relevant. I'm not terribly concerned, but I'd like to know if it's normal behavior or something I should dig into and address.
For the most part my car sits in the garage when I'm not driving it. Generally when I start it up it shows the temperature of the garage and usually takes a few minutes to adjust to the outside temp once I start driving.
I'll have to pay closer attention, but I'm pretty sure it only does this if the engine is already warm. Like when I took that picture, it was inside a very well ventilated parking garage, with an ambient temperature of around 90. It read 105 or so initially, and quickly rose to 120, then after I got on the main road, started going down. I wonder if the heat from the engine bay is what it's registering?
The OAT can be influenced by under hood temps, but usually stabilizes after a few minutes of driving.
Good to know. That was my guess, but I wanted confirmation. It's always fun trying to figure out what's a normal quirk and what indicates a problem when you get a new car.
I filled up shortly after the picture was taken, I ran it down more than usual because I was trying to figure out my gas mileage for my normal routine and using as much of the tank as possible makes the most accurate figure. 14.9mpg by my math, the same as my old Suburban.
07-14-2016, 04:19 PM
