Toyota Corolla Normal Operating Temperature

The thermostat's opening temperature should be stamped on the thermostat's plate. Coolant temperature is probably somewhere between 180 and 210 degrees F.

Hot enough to cook eggs, not hot enough to burn them.

Ever bake a potato on the exhaust manifold?

Most likely so that the needle is right in the center of its range. If it's consistently higher or lower, it would be worth looking into the reason.

I haven't, but others have...

Sounds like a good excuse to go get one of those radio remote barbecue/oven thermometers. Stick the probe in the chicken breast, wrap it in foil and put it in the "oven", and put the remote readout on the dash.

When the internal temperature of that chicken hits 165F pull over, it's dinner time.

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I usually keep my car around 75 F. I like to wear a sweatshirt or light jacket (like a spring jacket) when I go a drive over 20 minutes or so, rather than a winter coat. I also like to keep the moonroof open.

The operating temperature outside the passenger compartment is probably different. The engine is usually warmer, but what the temperature should be depends on where you measure it. Inside the cylinders, it probably goes from about 20 degrees warmer than outside temperature to around 600 F and back again real fast, 10 to 100 times a second, depending on the engine speed. The water temperature is probably a little warmer than the thermostat set point when it comes out of the engine and around ambient air temperature when it goes back in.

Jeff

Should be about in the middle of the temp gauge. My 96 1.6 always stays there, rock steady no matter how hot or cold. This thing has a first class cooling system.

And that is roughly 195-F to 200-F (roughly 95-C to 98-C), give or take 10 degrees F. Right where the thermostat is partially open and throttling the coolant flow out to the radiator to hold the temperature constant. Most Toyotas hold the temperature gauge rock steady at the mid-point unless you're driving it hard in the summer.

And excursions slightly above 212-F or 100-C are acceptable under hot weather full load conditions, since the cooling system is pressurized to relieve at about 14-PSI the boiling point is also raised.

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