Prius (2004-09) :: Outside Temperature Gauge Fluctuates
Oct 5, 2012
Something strange started happening to my '04 Prius yesterday and it happened again today. We are experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures here in Western Oregon for October and when I left my house this morning at 6:30 am, it was about 55 degrees. I have a half hour drive to work on a mixture of expressway, freeway, expressway again and then the two-lane highway.
Anyway, yesterday (and today) when I'm almost to work, my temp. gauge drops down to 37 degrees. This causes that yellow light to start blinking indicating that the engine will not shut off because of cold temps. It will warm back up to 45 degrees a minute or two later. Why is this happening? It for sure is not 37 degrees outside. Is my temperature sensor going bad? Is this exhibiting the behavior of a sensor going bad?
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I have a 2009 Prius. Last summer I noticed that the outside temperature gauge was not working properly. I asked at the wonderful dealership I go to and no one knew anything.
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So i decided to be a man and finish my 3.6vr in my gti project. Filled the coolant system with g13 and let the car run for a good half hour but the temperature only went to 130 degrees and would go back down to 120 and back to 130 and back and forth. With the heat turned on it was only slightly warm. Top hose was slightly hot and the bottom hose was just warm. So i tried massaging the hoses some more to let any air out and saw no bubbles. So i decided to go for a drive around the block and temps still stayed the same. So i'm leaning towards a thermostat but the motor was pulled out of a running passat with no problems.
Also its a brand new oem temp sensor
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About 4500 miles ago, I had the timing belt, water pump, thermostat, and all the accessory belts replaced and now, the water temp gauge sometimes rises rapidly from "normal" all the way to the "red" and back within about 15 seconds! This is on a 2006 Elantra GT
Should I replace the "coolant temp sensor" or do I have a real problem that needs repair?
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This is weird. SOmetimes my gas gauge fluctuates from low to high. I don't know how to explain it but it just bothers me thinking there might be a problem I'm not aware of. This also shows LCD display saying 190km left then after I start driving for a while it'll show 210km. [IMG] [URL] ....
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My fuel gauge fluctuates once I turn the key to Acc, once I fire it up it goes back to empty and climb back to the correct position,
Also once this happens, my MFD starts to act crazy, sometimes it shows nothing, and times gets stuck on the door open screen and my steering wheel controls go dead, if I turn off the car and then on its gets stuck "Volkswagen information" screen.
I disconnected/reconnect the battery everything went fine for a couple of days and then happened again,
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I just picked up a 2004 1.8T 5 speed 4 motion. It drives well, however i noticed some bugs. For one, the temperature gauge seems to bounce up and down a bit. I check the vag, and the car never gets abobe 75c, and usually sits around 70c when im cruising on the highway. So i changed the green top sensor to start, and I think it may be wrong, cause now the engine fan always stays on, and the temp problem is still there. SO now I have this fan issue, and still a temp problem. Did I change the wrong sensor totally? Is it my thermostat?
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My oil pressure gauge jumps all over the place when I get over 3000 rpms. At lower rpms it is in the normal range and the engine sounds ok. How can I tell if this is the oil pump or the sending unit or the gauge? This is a 1980 CJ5 with a 151ci 4 cylinder.
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I have a 2001 Honda CR-V SE, and I'm having a little trouble with it ... About a week ago I noticed that as I was driving around the city, my temp gauge was going up and down. I had the heat on, and when I was pressing the gas, the gauge would go down. When I coasted, the gauge would go back up to the middle. The gauge never went higher than the halfway point. I thought it was possible that my fluids were low, so I checked the coolant reservoir. It was empty, so I added some. The radiator itself was full to the lip (like the manual says it should be, if I interpreted it correctly). The first day or two, didn't notice anything, but then the gauge seemed to start falling again.
Anyhow, I decided to drive back to the big city to get it fixed, a 3 hr drive, last night. The car seemed to be operating fine. I did not have the heat on, but there was air flowing through the vents. The gauge started to creep downward, so I thought "Hey, let me hit that button that closes the vents" I did that, and the gauge creeped back up! Problem solved right? Negative! It was raining, so when that button was on too long, my windows got foggy. So that's how I spent the next two hours, button on, button off, then I finally just opened the windows to allow the air to circulate. In the meantime, I stopped for gas, allowed the car to idle for a while (no air/heat blowing at all) and the guage didn't move. It stayed in the middle.
Closer to the end of my trip the gauge started to creep upward, over the midpoint (The first time it's done that since this whole thing has started). Once off the highway, I turned the heat on that first notch, and the gauge went back down to normal.
At any rate, so it's Wednesday. I'm planning on getting the car to a shop on Friday, but in the meantime, I just wanted to get some info out there from the community. I'm pretty nervous about whats going to happen. I just had my car at an oil change place 5 days ago, and the guy didn't put the oil cap back on the engine, so I literally was driving for 3 days with oil spewing onto my hood (Checked the levels by the way and they were fine). The only way I would've known is that I opened the hood to check the coolant levels. I noticed the gauge issue last Wed, took it in for the oil change Friday (In which they said all my fluids were fine), checked the coolant Monday, and drove it 3hrs last night.
Are there any specific keywords I should mention to the mechanic for him/her to check?
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It was a cold winter in Boston in the last two months. And since then almost every time I started my 2005 Prius, the temperature was default to 75F. Also, the first time I start the car in a day, it almost show the outside temperature as Celsius instead of Fahrenheit unless I press the screen to display something else and then come back, then the Fahrenheit will come back.
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When taking our 2007 RX out of say a 72 degree garage to say a 90 degree day, it takes at least 10 minutes for the outside temp gauge to finally creep up to the ambient temperature. The gauge feels very sluggish at all other times.
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I have a few problems with my explorer. I was just wondering if there's any way I can fix them on my own instead of paying a mechanic. I
1. back passenger window wont roll down .. .
2. Gas gauge fluctuates can't get an accurate reading on it .. .
3. service engine light comes on for a couple days, then goes off .. .
4. shifts hard if i go over 65mph and then slow back down .. .
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I've owned this Toyota Camry 2004 LE for two years now and this issue started couple of weeks ago , I the tempreture gague is always at cold , mean less than 25% . where it used to be always in the middle and at the 50% right in the middle . heat still works , have not tried AC yet , it is still in the 20-30s here in Minnesota . I am suspecting maybe a thermostat or some other heating cooling sensor somewhere .
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I have a 2004 Pontiac Montana with about 107500 kms on it (VIN: 1GMDX03E24D183870) and the coolant temperature gauge is not working properly. Sometimes when I start my van, the temp gauge is pinned at MAX temp and stays there the whole trip...other times it's pinned at MIN temp...and other times it seems to work OK.
When it's pinned at MAX temp, I check the actual temp that the on-board computer is seeing, by using my OBDII scan tool...and I get about 87 degrees C when I'm halfway into my trip (i.e. - when the van is at operating temp), which seems OK. All the other analog gauges are working perfectly.
I read a lot about the issues with "connector C305" on the Internet on the Montana vans...could this be the problem?
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I have a 2004 Honda Civic that has about 183,000 miles.The problem is that when I start my car in the morning, the car never totally warms up when it's cold outside (I live in VA), until I press the gas pedal and rev the engine. Until I press the gas pedal, the temperature gauge stays at cold, and the heater blows cool air. I've taken it to the dealer 12 times for the same issue, but they can never find the real problem.
They flushed the A/C hoses and radiator, replaced the radiator cap, installed an upper hose, installed head gasket, water pump, and while there, the timing belt. They've also "burped" it numerous times. Also, when I have the heater on and fan on high, the temperature gauge drops as I'm going down a mountain and not pressing the gas pedal. After driving, and I stop, it also slowly drops while idling for about 5 - 10 min.
When it's warmer outside, I don't have any problems, because I don't have the heater on. This has been going on for about 1 1/2 years now, and it's starting to get cooler again, so I need to get it fixed or sell it.
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I have a 2007 f150 with the 5.4 in it and today I was driving it and my tempreture gauge randomly shot to cold and check engine light came on. Also can't even find the dam radiator cap due to too much plastic!!!
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So I noticed a few days ago when driving the turbo around that the temperature gauge fluctuates... ALOT. it will warm up to full operating temp, then when driving will go way down, almost to the cold line again and SLOWLY rise up, and when I mean slowly, I mean it takes about an hour or so to get there.
Well today, I changed the oil, there were about 2 qts in there but the car was about 2k overdue. MY BAD! So upon driving around seattle/bellevue/redmond today, noticed the gauge doing the same thing, and I am stumped, IDK why it would be doing this, the car doesn't overheat or anything.
Also, the girlfriend said that when she was driving the car, in the warmer weather, even while moving the temp gauge read almost hot, and the car was telling her to shut it off etc... I seriously am at a lose here.
The other night we noticed the TAIL light was out, but the brake light still worked. Last night we were out with some friends, they said that the TAIL AND BRAKE lights were not working, but ONLY on the drivers side, the passenger side worked as it should, we also noticed that when we hit the brakes, the front drivers corner light comes on and stays on until we take our foot off the brake.
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My girlfriend has a 2004 Toyota Camry SE, 2.4, 4 cly, with 198k miles. All maintenance has been done per book guidance since she has owned the car. The other day the car began running really rough on her way home. as soon as she put it into park and lowered rpm the car stalled out. temperature gauge did not read hot, but noticed white steam comes from hood when i seen she pulled up, Opened hood let cool down and coolant looked nasty as heck. So I did coolant flush and replaced the thermostat as per advised from parts store. Did not make a difference because during test drive, half mile down the road, car temperature gauge was reading hot. Shut the car down waited 10 to 15 minutes and drove back home.
Altogether drove roughly 10 miles max in hot condition is stop and cool down and go again mode. Also note, this is the first time using a forum of this sort. Along with, I'm not a mechanic as some are, but I know my way around a tool box no problems. I'm on the verge of just ordering new water pump, belts, fans, fan relays switches, radiator and all since I'm going to be in there to fix it anyways.
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My 2004 RX330 which has gone many years without a problem suddenly has instrument panel gremlins.
I started the car a couple of days ago (it had rained during the day), and the airbag light did not turn off. Then the TPMS warning light came on, the water temperature gauge dropped to zero. The AC controls stopped responding. Since I needed to get home, and the car seemed otherwise fine, I drove home, after a few minutes the transmission "D" drive light went blank and the instrument back-light went to full brightness.
A few minutes later, all the warning lights went off and the back-light went back to normal. The AC controls still seemed to be off. A few minutes later the airbag warning light came back on, followed by the TPMS light and the back-light went to full brightness again. This cycle kept happening all the way home.
The next morning, hoping the problem had been some errant water getting into something, I started the car, opened the driver's door to get something and got back into the car, closing the door. The light showing the door was open stayed on. I put the car into reverse, the doors did not automatically lock as they usually do. I turned off the engine and restarted it, most of the other lights were off, the doors would lock; airbag & TPMS light came back on.
It has stayed that way, except I also get the A/T temperature warning light coming on periodically, and after some cycle it goes off.
I borrowed a car code reader, it does not seem to show any error codes. In reading some other postings it has been suggested that the Brake light switch is the cause, but the brake lights come on/off without any problem.
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Just about every trip i take my temp gauge pegs and dinger goes off and check gauges lights up in the message center. It eventually will go back to normal or if i shut key off and restart truck it goes to normal. im guessing it is the temperature sensor for the gauge but not sure?? If it is, where is the gauge sensor located?
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I have a 2004 Hyundai Accent. The temperature gauge in the car moves toward the "danger zone" only under both the following conditions:
1) Car is at IDLE after being driven for a while (15-20 minutes). 2) Headlights are ON (I've sat in the car and watched the temperature gauge move up and then back down as I turn on and thrn turn off the headlights).
*What I've also noticed is that the temperature gauge starts moving up as the radiator fans kick ON.
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