[mswaim]

I began a thread earlier in the month on this issue, however most of you are too busy driving and enjoying your cars to respond.

I took mine out again this weekend for a spin down through the central valley of CA (200 miles round trip) outside temps averaged 96 degrees.

While moving at freeway speeds my gauge shows coolant temps to be around 180-200 degrees, however once I reached my destination and moved to surface streets, the coolant temps moved past 220 degrees and upwards.

When idling at a stop light gauge readings move closer to the 240 degree range and oil pressure as reflected on the gauge drops waaay off, recovering quickly once engine rpm's increase.

Anyone else notice large fluctuations in gauge readings now that the summer heat is approaching? My dealer states the system is operating within parameters, however they cannot tell me what those parameters are.

In my mind, anything above 220-230 degrees is pushing it, however I may be mistaken. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Eyedoc]

Not on mine

I live in DC and we have had some outside temps in the 90's, but not higher. Most of my driving is city sopt and go. I have not seen coolant issues like you mentioned.

If I take it out for some long highways spins, I'll take a look.

I can tell you that I have noticed similar temp swings on other cars in the same scenario. I always thought that the heat generated at highway speed is higher, but is better dissipated when traveling fast. When you slow to stop and go, the engine temp then goes up. However, I've never had a car that overheated in the this situation. I have also never lived in a desert-like environment (routinely above 100).

 

[mswaim]

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I'm just being too sensitive to the gauge readings, or perhaps the gauges are a bit more responsive than some i've seen in the past.

Overall I'd rather be safe than sorry.

 

[Eyedoc]

Tech Specs

Anyone know what the technical paramaeter are for coolant temp, etc?

That is, what is too high under standard situations and what is "red line"?

 

[Jerxlr]

I live in SW Missouri. Took the XLR to Branson Saturday night and encountered lots of slow traffic (typical for Branson this time of year). I noticed the temp gage would climb past the half mark while sitting and idling. The outside temp was around 70 degrees with very high humidity. The temp would fall back below the half mark when moving, especially after leaving town and back on the highway. I have no idea if this is normal for the XLR. If anyone finds out anything, we would appreciate letting us know back thru the forum.

Jer

 

[mswaim]

Great feedback guys, It appears as though this may be more common than I first thought. Again, it may be the way it was designed to function, just seems to be quite a varied swing.

 

[jamsto]

Hopefully it is not a common problem. We are driving our two XLRs on Thursday from New Mexico to Los Angeles. We will be going through the desert which is normally over 100 during the day. I would hope that we don't experience any overheating problems. I have not noticed any high readings in slow traffic up to this time.

 

[mswaim]

Any new observations?

 

[jamsto]

We drove our XLRs to the LA area last week and I noticed as did MSWAIM that in traffic on surface streets in LA my temperature gauge went up and the oil pressure gauge went down. When driving, all returned to normal, but I noticed the change while parked at stop lights. The temperature never went high enough to warrant any serious worry, but it did seem to change more rapidly than I thought it would. The oil pressure gauge would go back up to the normal range as soon as I started moving. I never noticed it like that here in New Mexico, but maybe I didn't pay as much attention to the gauges as I did after reading the posting about it.

 

[mswaim]

Thanks for the feedback from your trip, sounds like you had a great time.

My wife and I took a drive over the Holiday, staying a night in Reno and a night in Lake Tahoe. The tempatures were warm outside and we had no problems until we began the upward climb up to Reno from I-5 to I-80 over Donner Summit. Temps ran around 190-210 on the straight and flat areas but climbed to just over 240 while climbing. The car pulled like a train, however when we stopped and idled in one place the temp climbed a bit higher.

Maybe I'm just a worry-wart, however my common sense tells me anything above 240 degrees is pushing it for any vehicle. The boil point for our coolant mixture is approx. 260 degrees (or so I've been told by my service writer) so I think it's pushing it to run extended periods of time at or near that point.

 

[fredw]

I just took mine on a roadtrip through Northern California up I-5 in 100+ heat and didn't have any problems with coolent temperatures even over some pretty steep passes.