Hey Guys, So I took my Jag out last night for a drive in +5 C weather here in Calgary last night and found that my temp gauge did not rise at all? Has anyone else noticed this when out in cold weather? Thanks in advance

 

How far did you drive? I know that in cold-weather driving (35F when starting in garage, 15F outside) the indicator takes almost TWICE as long to start moving.

 

Hey CB2, I warmed up the car for 5-7 minutes and pulled out and drove 25 minutes and stopped for a snack and then drove back home another route about 40 minutes at 100km/h both ways. Car ran perfect. I just didn't see the temp move at all (It was on the bottom) and when I parked back in the garage it didn't seem hot or anything. Seemed good. Was just curious if anyone else had encountered this?

 

In a previous thread there was a reference to the temperature gauge being "buffered" to the extent that it would give no warning of an impending overheating in the event of coolant loss.
While I find that. if correct, to be quite ridiculous, therein may lay your answer. It may just take a longer to register the temperature change.

 

It's also easy to misread the temp gauge - I've looked at it, and puzzled why the blue bar at the bottom hasn't moved or gotten larger. It's the little arrow that moves. Seems obvious, but at a quick glance, it's not what I expect.

 

Me too - I've had to do a double take numerous times - that said, I find that the car gets to operating temp very fast. My VW takes forever.

 

Just about every modern car as a non-linear temperature gauge. It's to stop people from going to the service department when the gauge rises 1mm and people think there is a problem. Temp gauges in modern cars have a "good range". If the gauge go over that "good range" is when you visit the service department.

 

I think the issue is whether and how much "buffering" actually delays a real temperature overheat warning, or as in the above OP situation whether it signiifcantly delays showing temperature increases.
Plus, didn't gauges used to come approximately calibrated in degrees, back inthe day when oil pressure showed in psi, and we actually got a dipstick??
I shall be paying more attention to my gauge next time I get to drive it without salt on the road!!

 

One of the design goals when the engine was originally designed (as the 4.0 for the XK8) was a fast warm up. I think it won a design award for it.

 

Unless you aren't looking at the arrowhead (as others have mentioned), there seems to be an issue with your dash gauge sender (which usually is different from the ECU's temp sender).

Today we 'exercised' our F-Type, the temps were 33 in the garage, 18 outside. Instead of requiring ~3 miles to reach NORMAL (top of the blue part) it took 8 miles to reach the midpoint of the gauge (top of blue area). That was.20 minutes of driving at suburban speeds (35 - 50 MPH).

 

There is no buffering. The main issue is the actual overheat warning. Some cars will have a loud alarm to let the driver know something is wrong. Some cars just flash up an icon or light on the dash and expect the driver to see it. Either way, the typical driver will keep driving for longer than they should before shutting things down.

By the 90's, most cars came with non-linear temperature gauges. As mentioned, the typical user doesn't need to know if their car is at 160F or 200F. All they need to know is when the car is beyond what it's cooling system can support. Also as mentioned, it reduces service queries where someone thinks 180F is too hot for their car.

 

To add onto this, if you had heat going through your vents during this time, then it's likely just the dash display temperature system (sender, or damaged wire, etc). If you had no heat, then it's a different issue.