Temp gauge inaccurate

Is it giving you the road temperature or the air temperature?

I had a Volvo that gave the road temperature which was normally hotter, sometimes a 'lot' hotter. Came in handy around freezing to know when the road went critical.

Mike

FrankW wrote:

Why would you want any other temp when driving a car? From the car's perspective, SAFETY is the paramount issue. If you are going to get the outside temp, you would want that temp to be viewed from the rose colored glasses of Safety. If the temp said 40 and there was ice on the ground, then you would want to know that the temp was really somewhere below 35 where ice might not have melted away yet.

Sorry Mike, I wasn't ranting at you ...

The temp sensor is right between the radiator and the grill on the drivers side of the front end so it is giving you nose temperature.

I might add that on my 91XJ, it goes up, and up, and up when stuck in traffic, then down, and down, and down again when you get moving. Often, on a clearly 70F or so day, it will get over 100 after about 10 min. stuck in Los Angeles traffic.

When moving right along, it tends to read about 2-5 degrees high, compared to what the radio weather people say. The compass works pretty well though....

Regards,

DAve

I am aware that different conditions may affect the reading Like the temp may be higher above the black asphalt on a sunny day. (I heard of glider pilots using the hot air rise above freeway cloverleafs) But if the reading is drastically wrong in ideal test conditions, then really why bother to even put a temp gauge in a car. It's "almost" like having a fuel gauge which reads 1/4 tank when it's really empty.

Jeff Strickland wrote:

I think you're expecting 1% accuracy... where 5% was designed.

Professor

Professor wrote:

By the way I'm really talking degrees not percent.

FrankW wrote:

Hell, mine will start off ~+6-8 degrees and start cooling down a tad a i get moving. Once the engine warms up it throws it off again though.

Brandonb

FrankW wrote:

The sensors may be better than 5%... but the analog gauge movement is more like 5%.

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