2021 Škoda Karoq 1L petrol.

 

I’d previously posted about some coolant issues I’d had where it had fallen way below minimum and I topped it up and it has held since. I had the Škoda garage check it out and found no coolant leak. Considering putting it back in and getting them to run an actual diagnostic. 

 

Anyway so I am wondering from my googling if my thermostat is stuck in the open position? Would appreciate thoughts. Current observations:

 

1. The coolant dial does not rise smoothly. It takes a while to get off the mark (maybe 3mins?) then will rise a bit more and then stick there for a few more minutes and then rise a bit more and then stick until it hits the usual position (12 o clock). Usually in about 10mins I think. If I have used the car recently, and I go to drive again the dial will shoot up to 12 o clock in about a minute.
 

2. The oil temp never gets above 86°C by the end of my 25 minute commute. At least 15mins of which is done at 60-70mph. Is this normal? If relevant I live in Scotland so it’s averaging 2-4°C in the morning at the moment.
 

3. can’t be 100% sure but I feel like my fuel economy is down a fraction e.g maybe having to fill up a day or two earlier than expected. Normally I could get about 2 weeks out of a full tank.

 

My family and I are due to drive down south in 5 weeks so would like to make sure the car is happy before then. Also for fuel economy reasons!

I'm running daughter's old 1 litre manual Ateca at the moment.  The water temp engine gets up to temp very quickly - the temp "gauge" is LED sections in the Ateca, but the first one appears very quickly - seems like moments - and it's at the mid-point (=90C) in a couple of miles of rural road driving.   As it happened I had the coolant temp in the multifunction display today and I noticed it was at 90C as soon as I got onto the main road out of our village - of course much milder today, outside temp was 12C.

 

I would say the oil temps I'm seeing are same as yours - takes ages for the oil to get hot and I noticed at 60/70 today it was hovering in the mid 80's,  The oil temp seems to jump around a few degrees too.  The coolant temp just sits at 90 although I believe VW engineer it do that - it's not the actual temp, it's the engine ECU saying "OK".

 

I've been paying attention to the temps as I don't think the heater in the Ateca is great - it's adequate, but doesn't seem to get hot as quickly as our Karoq does.

 

Is your car manual or auto?

 

Edited 20 February, 20251 yr by Rory