High coolant teperarture in mountain conditions

Hi,

I'm on holliday with my 2003 9-5 2.0t (automatic) in the Swiss alps. I got kind of worried how high the temperature gauge rose on a moderate climb to my appartment the other day. It got up to 3/4 of the way (see pic below).

The climb was not extreme, from 400 to 800 meters altitude on a 4 km distance... It was on a very hot afternoon though (30+ celsuis), with my entire family on board, and I had the AC on. I'm an experienced mountain driver, and usually put the transmission in Sports mode or manual to make sure it does enough revs on a climb. The temperature lowered quickly to a bit above horizontal on the last 500 level meters to my appt, but still it was a bit high to my opinion. I was thinking of crossing some passes into Italy later on this week, but now I'm kind of worried it wille leave me standing with a boiling engine on the St Bernard or Simplon pass.

I've owned this car for about a year now, and last March, on the same location but with much lower outside temperature, it never came any higher than usual.

My old 9000 never comes above 1/3 of the way, even now in the exact same conditions, and when I drive it hard uphil (I took both cars with me on holliday this time)

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Reply to
Nel
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Nel gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

5 year old car. When was the coolant last changed? Is the rad starting to get tired? Do the fans work...?
Reply to
Adrian

A temperature 3/4 scale isn't going to result in any damage. It is still within the normal operating range.

It is possible of course that your cooling system is not working at full efficiency (perhaps the radiator is getting on a bit) or the water pump isn't pumping so good (due to corrosion/cavitation wear on the impeller blades).

If it happens again and you are worried, you could turn OFF the A/C and turn your heater to maximum heat on the maximum fan speed. This will be uncomfortable but it will dump out a lot of heat and can mean the difference between overheating or not.

Reply to
Marty

Good point, i don't know. I got copies of the service history before buying the car, and must still have them... at home. The car had a whopping 185k miles on it when I got it, it topped 200.000 miles just now, and was maintained by the book at the local dealership that sold it new. I checked the coolant level in the expansion tank, and it looked normal.

At level roads or with lower outsite temperatures (like early in the morning when I return from the valley after getting bread) it remains at nine o'clock, so i could take it home and have it reviewed after my holliday, but then i guess I'll have to take the old 9000 when I want to cross to italy. I was wondering if there where some DIY ways to find out what's wrong. Like getting a garden hose ans cleaning the radiator. in 200.000 miles there can be an awful lot of dead bug in there...

Reply to
Nel

True... I've owned various '80's peugeots and citroens that had very liveky temperature gauges, but with recent cars I've got used to steady nine o clock cooland gauges. However I found out that 's a trick, i'm told its possible with the SAAB tech II to set a range (like form 80 to 110 celsius) within which the gauge is set to horizontal. So they're not telling you the actual temperature anymore.

I guess a cleaning of the radiatro is a way to start.

Good point, however I think I would prefer to take my other car when i go over mountain passes then (more fun even, because it's a manual)

Reply to
Nel

My C900 is regularly taken in a run into the hills here and it always has a quite high coolant temperature when making the climb from 600 to 2000 m. in about 14 km. As soon as getting to the top, the temperature drops right back to normal. Hasn't seemed to caused any problems.

I drive it around town on up to 50 deg. C. days in stop and go situations and the temperature never rises and the fan doesn't even come on.

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

Today i took a garden hose and flushed a lot of water through the front of the radiator. It didn't look like an entire mass grave or bug or any visible dirt came out, but I took it for a drive over the Simplon (Sempoine) pass into Italy and back, and the car was remarkably cooler. The cooling fan didn't came on quite as often as I had gotten used to, so it seems a lot better. Tomorrow it will get really hot and moist again, so I'll be able to compare it on the climb that I originally signalled the problem on, but for now it seems that I'm out of trouble...

50 deg? Celsius?? Wow, where do you live?
Reply to
Nel

What is considered "hot" for your area?

Mojave Desert of eastern California, near Death Valley.

50 deg. is fairly rare, but 45 is nearly every day in summer.

We were in northern California the end of May for a few days and the temperatures were at or below 20 deg. and rainy. We thought we were going to freeze to death!

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

above 25 degrees is a warm summer day, 30+ is bloody hot. I'm on holliday in Switserland now, of course we go on holliday to a place with good weather. So we can deal with it here, but 30+ on a working day at home is terrible.

Of course over there it's dry heat, here it gets moisty and sweaty.

Wow. from 20 degrees and above put on shorts... with 25 degrees I open a bottle of beer and light the bbq ;-)

Reply to
Nel

Nel gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

We drove through Nevada and Death Valley at the end of August/start of September a couple of years ago. We thought, to be perfectly honest, like we were going to die. It was _ridiculous_. At that kind of temperature, anything other than bone dry just wouldn't be survivable.

And, no, we didn't have aircon in the 2cv we took... We _had_ to close the roof and windows, because the air coming in through 'em was hotter than what was already in the car. It was a choice between being in an oven or a fan oven.

Reply to
Adrian

A 2CV? You drove trough nevada in a Citroen 2CV?? You the man!!!! You got a site with foto's of that venture?

Reply to
Nel

Nel gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Well, it was in the way - we left Boston heading south, turned right at Florida, and finished up in California...

The car belonged to some friends in CA, who'd driven East to a big Citroen meet, but didn't have the time off work to drive back. So we did.

Can't even remember where we put the prints... Probably in a box somewhere, together with the ones from taking a 900i across the Sahara, and the other photos from various trips.

S'pose I ought to some time, but there's nothing more tedious than other people's holiday snaps.

Reply to
Adrian

I can't think of any car that is these days. They show "normal" for a big range of temperatures and they only tell you what the ECU says you need to know. Yours was showing "slightly above normal." Perfectly safe, especially given you understand why.

If it goes up to "slightly warm" during a long descent, then time to get worried!

A trick worth remembering just in case, but unless the coolant temperature goes into the red, it's all fine.

It may be that the difference between normal and your gauge is a couple of degrees. So 110 degrees is normal but 111 degrees is "slightly warm."

Reply to
DervMan

Ah, prints... We're talking analogue photography times... My mistake, I kind of supposed it was a recent trip, in the digital age, and you put a web log with foto's on-line.

I guess you;re right. Unless of course it's about cool cars in weird places :-)

Reply to
Nel

Nel gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Ummm, 2002...

Reply to
Adrian

Eherm, I didn't have a digital camera untill 2004...

Reply to
Nel

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