Trying to find out if I have a proplem or if this is MINI thing. It's been real cold the last couple of nights... I driver in to work around 5:00am and the temp was -5 brrrrr. Driving I noticed it took some time for the car to warm up ...the needle for the temp guage fianlly was at the mid point but as I had to slow down and my RPM's drop towards 2000 I saw the needle start to go down towards cool. Now mind you I had the heat cranking (and that cooled off as you might expect) and might have been taking the heat from the engine to fast... but I never had a car cool down while driving. Just wanted some input from y'all... thanks

 

Wow, that's an interesting situation. How much did the needle drop?

 

Wow never heard of this. I wonder if the combination of the cold weather and your car running so well could cause it to run so cold

 

it dropped but not all the way down..but to the first marker after dead cold!

 

My water temp seems to come up relatively quickly (5 - 10 mins), but the engine (is this really oil temp?) says pegged at the bottom of the scale for what seems to be a long time. Then just starts to creep up.

It has been in the 15-20F deg range in the mornings around here.

 

As I understand it the needle shows you water temp (coolant?) not oil temp. I read on here somewhere that even when the needle says your car is warm, the oil is not yet, and it is still not safe to really get on it.

In really cold driving conditions my last two cars had the needle drop as mentioned above - not yet in the MCS however.

mb

 

that's normal at -5F. brrrrrr!!!

 

Its possible that your thermostat is stuck open. It should be closed when you start the car cold, allowing it to warm up quickly. Then it should open, to pass water through the radiator, so the engine doesn't overheat. In cold weather, if the water temp cools, the thermostat should close slightly to maintain a fairly constant engine temp. At -5, it could be that the heater core is bringing the temp down, even with the thermostat closed, but you might want to get that checked.

 

Here's a thought... bundle up one morning and drive around with the heater off. Your engine temp. should remain constant. Then, turn the heater on, and see if it fluctuates. If the engine temp is constant with the heater off, and only fluctuates with the heater on, your thremostat is OK, and you're just seeing a normal effect of cold weather.

 

Agreed. I'd check that and the temp gauge itself. I've driven in super cold weather like that without temp problems. Then again, my MCS doesn't even have a factory coolant temp gauge due to the presence of the Nav system.

 

Mine takes nearly an hour to get to optimum temperature even at 17F. Andy, you can access the temp reading (amongst other things) through the OBD...but I think you know that.

 

I've got the crono pack so I have a water/coolant gauge and an engine (oil) gauge. It makes sense that the water temp comes up first, since that is a relativly small volume of water in the engine (prior to the thermostate opening to the radiator) and the oil has several quarts to heat up in the pan.

While cold the oil pressure also stays high until the temps come up a little bit. Certainly don't want to push it to hard with oil temps that low.

 

I was driving for about 10 minutes when this ocurred... I was cranking the heat at 84+ degrees... the temp coming out was warm but not hot...as the RPM's ( I was never above 3000 at this point in thedrive) came down I suddenly felt the air blowing getting colder then I saw the needle for the water temp dropping as well.. today it was about 0 degrees.... when I turned down the temp and the fan everything came back up and never dropped again....

 

still sounds normal to me.

these tech guru's bring up great points about these parts that may not
be working properly, but also bring more unnecessary worries with it.

if your car runs fine with no weird noises, etc. and your fluids are
regulary checked, i would say no issue.

 

If several folks report that it takes a long time for the engine to get up to operating temperature in cold weather, then its probably normal. It may be that our little 4-bangers just don't generate that much heat. It seldom gets very cold where I am, so I don't really know what's normal for these cars in low temperatures.

 

no biggie, wasn't trying to stick anyone with my comment.

Industry standard operating temperature for a vehicle is
-40C to +85C although some deviations to specifications are
accepted at the extreme lows and highs per component.

now, considering the water temp reading is 'normal' between
the cold and hot readings, even if the needle is not completely
centered exactly between cold and hot does not mean
it is operating irratically especially if the ambient temperatures
are near the extremes for a normal human being.

normal human being industry standard has not yet been defined.