For two days this week Monday and Tuesday it was overnight -7oC and -5oC and we have only on street parking in our Victorian road.

Coming out both mornings the warning lights for the Water pump/temperature were on so it didn't get driven in case the water pump had packed up....but there were no signs it had.

I had to take a couple of days off work and not risk blowing the engine on my commute and try and get a local garage to look at it. Wednesday night it was above freezing but there were screeching sounds in the engine bay when I started it in the morning which I though was the pump ( I may be wrong here), so off to a local garage it went.

Left overnight at the local garage as they wanted it 'cold' to do the diagnostics and check the pump, sensors etc. Today Thursday an unseasonable 6.5oC at 7am I went down to the local garage to see what they could find.

They have found absolutely nothing it all checks out...Sensors, fuses, pumps etc... I have now driven it and it seems perfectly ok.

Does anyone else have phantom warning lights or pumps freezing in very cold weather. I will add that it is regularly serviced and has all the correct antifreeze fluids in it etc..

I noticed that the battery light stayed on longer when I started up in cold weather recently... I assumed it was just because everything was cold? Seemed to work as normal, though I don't remember it doing so in the even colder spell we had in early 2019... Do you have access to VCDS?

Did the garage test the water for percentage of anti-freeze ?

 

Obviously if it is -7°c and the antifreeze proportion is too low, then water will become ice (same applies to windscreen squirter bottle)

 

Parts of Europe (maybe not this mild winter) see temperatures below -25°c and car should still start if antifreeze is strong enough

 

29 minutes ago, sandspider said:

I noticed that the battery light stayed on longer when I started up in cold weather recently... I assumed it was just because everything was cold? Seemed to work as normal, though I don't remember it doing so in the even colder spell we had in early 2019... Do you have access to VCDS?

Sandspider, Alas I don't have access to VCDS but I have had a few phantom bulb gone warnings as well so I might invest in one.

15 minutes ago, SurreyJohn said:

Did the garage test the water for percentage of anti-freeze ?

 

Obviously if it is -7°c and the antifreeze proportion is too low, then water will become ice (same applies to windscreen squirter bottle)

 

Parts of Europe (maybe not this mild winter) see temperatures below -25°c and car should still start if antifreeze is strong enough

 

Surrey John, We checked all the 'waters' in the car and they seem ok. None were frozen but as a precaution I might get them all drained and refilled and see if that was the issue. Usually the heat from the previous days driving keeps the car engine bay snug for about half a day at least but it had been unused over the weekend and was stone cold. Has only frozen once before a good few years ago but that was -14oC and now we are into gobal warming...

@Wellfoxed - You can get a false positive "overheating" reading quite easily in these conditions. Try idling the engine for about 30s, switch off and remove key, count to 10 and restart. If your warnings have now cleared they're false positives from the coolant level sensor. How to proceed depends on which expansion bottle your car has.

1 minute ago, KenONeill said:

@Wellfoxed - You can get a false positive "overheating" reading quite easily in these conditions. Try idling the engine for about 30s, switch off and remove key, count to 10 and restart. If your warnings have now cleared they're false positives from the coolant level sensor. How to proceed depends on which expansion bottle your car has.

KenONeill cheers we will give it a go when or if it next occurs.