During colder weather, the owner of this 2006 Skoda Fabia 1.4, experienced trouble getting the engine up to a proper operating temperature. He put the problem down to colder weather. Even on a longer journey, the engine temperature had trouble getting up to the 90 degree mark, where it should have been running.

One particularly cold morning, the owner was quite pleased to see the temperature begin to rise a little quicker, and it reached a normal level of 90 degrees. He wasn’t quite so happy a few minutes later, as the coolant continued up towards the 110 degrees mark. Fearing engine damage from overheating, he pulled over and called out the recovery service, who bought him along to the garage.

The problem was a failure of the thermostat housing. On this engine, the thermostat needs to push against the body of the thermostat housing in order to operate correctly. When the interior of the housing begins to age and becomes brittle, it can break away under the pressure, leaving the thermostat free to move at will. This allows excessive circulation that keeps the engine coolant at a lower than normal temperature.

The owner’s quick action, stopping after seeing the temperature gauge rise above normal,  prevented any other problems from occurring.