Elise Temperature Question. At what point do you jump ship

[SeanyD]

OK, Having owned my elise for around 18 month now, I'm no newbie, and I'm fully aware of digital temperature gauage paranoia. But question is this...

Sat in not-quite stationary traffic jam this morning for around 45 minutes, not quite slow enough to switch the engine off, I watched the gauge go from the usual 88 degrees or thereabouts, up, up, up, and eventually reach 103 before the cooling fan fully deployed, after which point it hung around the 97 to 99 degrees mark, until I got through the traffic and it came back down to around 91 or so.

Question is
a) Is this normal, or am I showing signed of HGF.
b) At what point do you conclude, sh*t this is bad, switch off, and leave the vehicle, knowing fine well you're going to add to the traffic problems and probably have a run in with BiB.

Any advice from you seasoned Elise owners please...

[kevin ritson]

Normal - it climbs to 102-103 in traffic before dropping to 96 then starting again.
When it gets above this I'd worry - especially if it nears 110

[noodleman]

That's perfectly normal.

If the cooling fan didn't kick in by 105 I'd be conmcerned.

[bher]

noodleman said:

That's perfectly normal.

If the cooling fan didn't kick in by 105 I'd be conmcerned.

Second to that

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

Perfectly normal, good for scaring people on the motorway though when you've got a bit of light rain, makes the car steam nicely.

Think it was Mr Wiki on SELOC who came out with:

Office: And how fast were you going Sir?
Drive: About 88 degrees officer

[SeanyD]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I checked the coolant at lunchtime, and everything seems to be in order. It's just the first time ever I'd seen it go as high as that, makes me very nervous.

[Lotus Lewis]

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Perfectly normal, good for scaring people on the motorway though when you've got a bit of light rain, makes the car steam nicely.

I remember when that happened to me for the first time i thought my front clam was on fire

[LRGS2]

Having had two HGF failures in 5 thousand miles you should only start to worry when the temperature averages around the high 90's and can no longer hold around the 88 degree mark. Both times this has happened to me spelled HGF! It is quite normal when stationary or moving slowly for the temperature to go over 100 and for the fan to cut in.

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

Lotus Lewis said:

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Perfectly normal, good for scaring people on the motorway though when you've got a bit of light rain, makes the car steam nicely.

I remember when that happened to me for the first time i thought my front clam was on fire

It's great on the motorway, watching the look of horror on other drivers faces as they think your car is about to burst in to flames. Fortunately I knew about it before it happened to me the first time.

[Lotus Lewis]

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Lotus Lewis said:

LivinLaVidaLotus said:

Perfectly normal, good for scaring people on the motorway though when you've got a bit of light rain, makes the car steam nicely.

I remember when that happened to me for the first time i thought my front clam was on fire

It's great on the motorway, watching the look of horror on other drivers faces as they think your car is about to burst in to flames. Fortunately I knew about it before it happened to me the first time.

Well i brought my car in the winter time last year, so it must have been about the 3rd time i had drove it when i found myself stuck in traffic minding my own business. When my window started steaming up then i realised it was on the out side of the glass. Which your brain thinks is smoke coming up from the front clam i tell you i didn't know what to do,there iam stuck in traffic thinking that my car was going to bust into flames at any moment, so i just pull in when i could and got out pretty quickly and was just easing my head slowly over the front clam not know if my whole face was going to get burnt off and then i realised what it was my heart beat slowed down i took a quick look around to see if anyone and been watching me and laughing ,so i jump back in the car and drove off pretty swiftly....I laugh about it now but at the time i was Sh##ing myself