Hi guys, I recently have bought 2 years old Škoda Fabia 1.0 81kw with Climatronic and DSG with 36 000 miles. I quite like it but I found strange behaviour regarding its temperature more specifically about the temperature gauge on the dashboard.

 

When cruising everything is fine, the pointer stays in the middle at 90 degrees regardless if I have set the Climatronic for Auto Mode on 23 degrees and using the 3th of 7 heating levels or if I manually set the Climatronic for HI and open for full on the 7th heating level.

 

But when the engine goes for idle (around 950 rpm when parked) it´s fine when I have Auto Mode on Climatronic on 23 degrees and using the 3th of 7 heating levels. But when I set it manually for HI and open for full on the 7th level, the water temperature pointer on the gauge starts to drop and goes back around 2/3 to 90 degrees. Or even if I keep the 23 degrees but just manually set the level heating level to the 7th level it happens as well. Only one difference is that it takes much longer to drop than with HI on 7th level. When I start to drive, it takes less than half mile to goes back to 90 degrees.

 

Is this kind of behaviour normal or is there a faulty thermostat?

 

I have found some topics here regarding similar issues

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/478156-temperature-gauge-thermostat-question/

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/473110-fabia-mkiii-water-temp-issue/

 

but, there are not exactly the same and even if two people facing the same issue it does not automatically means that this behaviour is correct as I would not be probably the only one person with faulty thermostat.

 

One more thing to mention. How fast it droops depend how many miles I drove before. As longer journey, as longer it takes to drop.

 

Is there someone who can certainly point out that this is (not) normal? By knowledge or by having the same car with the same engine and not facing this issue? With my old Passat this never have happened, but someone told me that this super eco friendly engines does not generate so much heat as old Passat 2.0 did.

 

Skoda garages are quite useless, one wants me to come in immediately and the second one claimed that this is ok. I really don’t want to spend money on thermostat change without any difference afterwards.

 

Thanks for your opinions and experiences.

 

 

It suggests that in this very cold weather, the engine is not producing sufficient heat to keep the engine at running temperature AND keep the heater running fairly high. So my first question is the engine cooling fan running continuously?

Hi, thanks for the reply.

 

I assume that I probably will have to open the bonnet for that or can it be heard from the inside? Is there a just one fan or more?

 

I´m quite lame when it comes to mechanical things, however I quite have enjoyed my time with VAG on my old Passat 2005, but the VAG which I have does not work with these new models :-(

 

Anyway, should the fan be running or not? Also, I think that this is the point of thermostat(s). To open and close circuits to maintain the right operating temperature after the car reach it. I´m I wrong?  I understand that the it can´t keep the exact temperature, however the Passat never have gone under 80 C according to VAG and the pointer at the dashboard always have showed 90 C in the middle. This goes down like about 1/3 (shows 2/3 to 90).

No in this weather the cooling fan would not normally be running, I agree with what @TerFarsaid, ie in colder weather when the engine is not being asked to do a lot of work, it will not not be dumping enough waste heat into the coolant to keep up with what you are removing to heat the cabin.

Hi guys, just a quick update with my conclusion for the time being. As the temperature went up from -5 to +8 I tried the same again. Now it took 13 minutes for the temperature to drop a little bit and when pressed the accelerator it went straight up. When it was -5 it started to drop after 4 minutes.

 

So I agree with what has been written here and guess that this “eco-friendly” engine can´t even heat itself when idling. And when and how quick it starts to drop depend on the temperature outside and how really heated the engine itself is. If after short, mid or long journey.