[Roy]

hi everyone, I have a 1996 volvo 850 2 litre 20 valve. the engine warms up fine when running round town but as soon as the car is out on the open road, the engine runs much cooler (just off cold). the engine also takes a long time to warm up in this cold weather.

The car has been in for checking and the garage says that the thermostat is opening and closing fully but he has not checked the temperatures at which it does this. there is no damage to the thermostat and it is not sticking open or closed.

there is no coolant loss from the engine.

Any ideas.

Roy

 

[Tech]

Did they open up the thermostat and look at it?They are known to break and it wil cause simptoms like you are complaining about.

 

[Roy]

They said there didn't seem to be anything mechanically wrong with the thermostat

 

[Tech]

Try to find out if they actually had the thermostat in there hand or if they just took temp readings off the engine.The 850 has very little cooling problems and if it does most of the time it is the thermostat.

 

[Roy]

yes. as i said, they had the thermostat out and inspected it. Though they did drop it in hot water to see if it opened, they didn't take any temperature readings.

 

[Tech]

Im not sure what else it could be unless the thermostat is opening either to early or to late.If they didn't take any temp reading then they don't know what temp it is opening at.

 

[Roy]

that was my thoughts. You would have thought that since this is such an obvious one, and for the price of a new thermost. While they had the old thermostat out they should have binned it and put in a fresh one.

roy

 

[Tech]

I agree about 90% of the cooling problems in the 850 is due to bad thermostat.

 

[Roy]

I'll let you know what happens when i finally get a new thermostat in it. Thought of doing it myself but from looking on the web, seems the bolts can be a bit of a problem, last thing I want is to sheer them. Roy

 

[Tech]

But if they just had them out then shouldn't give you any trouble at all.I have never had any problems with them either.

 

[850T5]

Roy

100% thermostat wrong openin/closin temp, I`ve got the same thing on my T5 four years ago, now its time to chang it again, so every 4-5 years thermo need to be changed!

 

[Roy]

Thanks everyone for your contributions. The thermostat has now been replaced and the car's a lot faster on heating up and in this cold weather we're having the car is much warmer inside. The temperature guage is staying in the 3 o' clock position and everything appears to be ok. Once again, thanks to those who contributed.- Roy

 

[Tech]

Your welcome Im glad you got it fixed.

 

[snorrih]

Sorry I didn't chime in earlier, I had exactly the same problem and just replaced the thermostat. Easy fix. I would never open the thermostat housing and not replace the thermostat (well, maybe if it was one month old...).

Glad you fixed it.

Snorri H.