Hi all and seasons greetings!

I have upgraded from my Felicia 1.3 MPI am the proud new owner of a Skoda Felicia Fun.

Driving it back from picking it up, I noticed that the temperature gauge had not moved, suspecting that the coolant temperature sensor was faulty I replaced this and we now have movement on the gauge.

However, it still seems to be running a little cold compared to the 1.3 MPI, hovering around 75 - 80 degree mark when driving, and only rising slowly upwards when stuck in traffic. I suspect that there may be a problem with the thermostat, but would like to check what the normal operating temperature is for the 1.6 MPI engine before I set about replacing it.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Mick

there are 2 different temp ranges depending on which thermostat it has fitted to be absolutely precise.

but it should be around the 85-90 point, it's fairly common for the thermostats to these to get a bit sticky. also it's not unknown for the little plastic 'bridge' inside the thermostat housing to snap off when you pull the old stat out

Ditto. Mine gets to the midpoint on the gauge and stays there regardless of driving conditions (well, it did prior to my current issues with the coolant preferring to be outside the engine, at least). Both the ECU readout and waving an IR thermometer at it also confirm this is about 90 degrees, and the temperature at the radiator when the fan first kicks in is about 100-105 degrees (although this may differ slightly as mine has A/C and the 2-stage fan that goes with it).

For reference, mine has what I think are the later type clocks with no numbers on the temp and fuel gauges, and a yellow-band temp sensor - a blue one causes the gauge to read around 5-10 degrees higher than it should.

Also to clarify, it's only the outer cover (£10-15) that needs replacing if it's broken, not the whole thermostat housing (£lots) - Certainly when I got mine it had already snapped as Tom described, as well as the 'stat having disintegrated into several pieces, so I'd say it's probably worthwhile to put a new one on regardless.