V70 Engine temperature

[boggymarsh]

I haven't been on here for ages as, touch wood, our car has been trouble free. With the weather getting a wee bit cooler now the heater is being used, especially on journey first thing in the morning.
Both my wife and I have noticed that it is taking an eternity for any reasonable heat to come through the vents and for the temperature gauge to move off from its resting point. On a journey last week when I had the car I had travelled over 6 miles before I could get a reasonable heat in the car. This seems crazy for a car that was built in a place where the temperature gets a damn site colder than the UK!

Please can anybody help. Would I be right in suggesting that this is a thermostat problem in the engine cooling system? Are the thermostats easy enough to replace?

Thank you.

[oilburner]

I agree, sounds very much like the thermostat. Petrol or diesel, these are some of the fastest cars to heat up on the road, in my experience. Must be a Swedish thing.

If you're not confident with changing the thermostat (it is easy) check out the Haynes manual or an Indy should be able to do it quite cheaply as it won't take them long.

[Radarman]

I have a V70 D5 (first oil burner) and it to takes about 5 miles to fully warm up. According to long time diesel engine owning chums, diesels do take longer to warm up due to their inherently more efficient (less waste heat) nature.

[Clan]

Thats true but latest diesels have their cooling system water way routing designed for quick warm up as it improves emmisions . The D5 and V50 2.0 D warm up quite fast ..

[Radarman]

Define "quite fast". Is my 5 miles on a gentle throttle too far then? I do start to get warm air though after about 2 miles, but the temp gauge is not fully up till past 5 (ish) miles.

[Clan]

It depends on ambient temperature there is a big difference at 30 C and 0 C both of which we have in this country .
But on average time wise between 5 and 10 minutes , 5 minutes driving away briskly and 10 or under keeping the load and rpm down ..
A good test for the thermostat is drive a short distance until the temp gaugue is half way up to normal and stop with it idling and feel the top water hose at the radiator end , if its warm then the thermostat is leaking hot water away to the radiator ....

[Radarman]

Thanks Clan. I reckon mine's about average.

[oilburner]

Mine sends warm air to the vents within 5 minutes and is fully warm within 15. That equates to 3-4 miles. Being an auto and keener to rev (especially) when cold, that might help matters too.

Don't be shy of revving the engine a bit when cold. I always found LJK Setrights rule of thumb handy: "keep revs to about 1/2 of maximum until engine fully warmed up". The auto sometimes goes a little beyond that pulling off from cold, but not by much.