Trick_A6

Greetings all, my '98 A6 2.8L probably has a open thermostat that is stuck open... the car runs fine and never goes above the half way point, even in traffic with the A/C on 83° weather out here in Santa Maria, CA.

However, out on the highway with temps as high as 41° the coolant gauge will drop to cold. The engine oil temp remains around 175° and of course will rise slightly when the engine temp rises. Above 50° the car runs pretty close to normal.

So, I have 83,000 miles on it and I know I will have to do a timing belt service at 90,000 which I can then do the water pump and thermostat...

What I did today was put a small cardboard box in front of the radiator and cover about 3/4 of it. Coming in to work on the highway the car went up to normal operating temps and appeared to be OK.

Is this alright for the time being? Will I do more harm by restricting some of the airflow vs. just letting the car run cool?

Thanks in advance!

audikillsbmw

You broke it : )

A6sport

have the TB service done, as well as all the associated parts -

signal11

83k miles is a good time to do the t-belt. The sticker on the hood says 75k despite the manual.

4Driver4

STFA to find out what a complete belt service should include.

Just Me

Keep in mind that what you are doing is greatly extending the warm up period in the morning. This means more time with parts not really fitting (tolerences are at operating temp, or about 200 deg F). More time with oil not really flowing. More time with fuel enrichment diluting your oil. These are not minor -- between 90%-95% of all engine wear occurs during warm up. Its when head gaskets blow due to wider gaps between blocks and heads ( and idiots use a heavy foot).

Fix it. But yes, you can get by, so long as you know what's really happening.

Grant

S4_Cinci (I S'edTFA)

the temps up in the optimal range. YOu really should get the TB service along with a new t-stat like everyone else says, though - ASAP.

Press

thought it was the t-stat, turned out to be the sending unit, a few months ago the t-stat failed, in the close position....had the tb service done and all is well

DesmoTesta

Get it donw along with WP and Thermostat as soon as you can.

A6Gary

components in place. I had no problems with any of the TB components (none were about to fail) and the belt looked in great shape. I finally did the TB maintenace service last July. My coolant temp was doing the same as yours prior to changing out the thermostat as part of the TB maintenance. Prior to replacing the thermostat, I even changed out both ECTs thinking that the low temp was due to one of the sensors being faulty (also had CEL illuminated periodically due to low coolant temp).