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Can a car fail an MOT due to Temp Needle not working ?

andy15star

Full Member
Apr 17, 2005
825
0
Durham
Hello,

Just looking through my past few emission test reports and i noted on them that it says "Temperature gauge shows normal temp".

Within the last year my temperature gauge has become a little erratic, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Mostly 50/50.

Could it fail an MOT on this, if it wasn't working when they did their emission tests ??

I know there isn't an issue with the temperature because i have ScanGauge showing cWt (Water Temp in Celcius) and it always reads around the 90 mark, and has never gone over.

Best Regards,
Andy
 
no a temp gauge isnt used in the test when an MOT is carried out.Some old cars and very few new cars (ford focus RS) dont have temp gauges, The tester can check the heater pipes warm aswell to know the car is up to running temp
 
Prob worth getting it fixed tho! Pretty handy thinkg to have!
Mine isn't working either mate! Beeps 3 times with a red light flashing too so i think its just the coolent bottle.
 
yep i agree totally BCM, on mine the red light still works (presumably), the gauge is intermittent. Some days it will work all the time, other days it refuses to work !. But, i have the scangauge reading cWt so that's my main gauge now, and it gets it's info from the ECU, so it's reliable !, so any overheating problems would be picked up by this anyway

Best Regards,
Andy
 
My scanguage picked up my fuse had blown for my fans faster than the dash gauge did.
Enabled me to stop and sort it before any problems occurred.
Got my MOT tomorrow, doesn't run out till end of the month but i like to be prepared.
 
lol, yep the ScanGauge is a top notch piece of kit !! - they can backdate (or forwarddate) MOT's a month now can't they ??. I was thinking of getting mine done earlier, just after it's service.

Regards,
Andy
 
Just a guess, but temp gauge working intermittantly is normally the temp sender faulty, not expensive to fix, always try to get a genuine sender ( around £20 ), now modified to a green colour.
Jochen.
 
Cheers Jochen, so what would a SEAT dealer charge to fit a temp sender (roughly) ?, could the average (decent) garage do it ? (i'm thinking the volkspart garage i'm taking it in for it's service, they're a volks/bosch garage) ?

Regards,
Andy
 
Hi,
The level sender is in the bottle the temp sender is on the cylinder head water outlet just above the gearbox... dealers would prob charge between half to one hour including diagnostic.... so thats around £100 depending where you go. You would need to ring around some specialists for a quote, but insist on a genuine sender to prevent further problems in the future, as a guide, I would charge £40 total for sender and fitting.
Best regards.
Jochen.
 
Cheers Jochen!, might ring around after it's service, it's only really an annoyance, so not too high on the agenda (as car this month will have cost me best part of £800!!), but if i can get it done for £40 then i'd be happy to get it done. I'm just happy that the ScanGauge does the water temp thing, and also on the climate control, jusy as reassurance temp is okay !.

Regards,
Andy
 
some one correct me if i'm wrong, but temp guage can be down to them prongs in bottle getting crapped up. read somewere to give them a scrape clean . just another option
 
ah i'll give that a go, pardon my ignorance but what exactly am i looking for and where ?, where abouts in the LC engine is the water bottle and what do the prongs look like ? (novice !)

Regards,
Andy
 
The prongs in the coolant header tank are for level sensing, not temperature.

The coolant temperature sensor is screwed into the bit of pipework that hangs off the righthand side of the cylinder head and has lots of hoses attached to it. The single component contains two sensors, one of which feeds the gauge (only) and the other sends to the ECU.
 
Cheers Mutley, i'm glad you put me off trying to correct it myself, i'd have only made a pigs ear of it !. Actually, the temp gauge has been fine all yesterday and today!, so maybe it's rectified itself. I'll keep an eye on it during the next week!

Andy
 
Cheers 2slim, that makes it easier to spot. Gonna leave it for a while as there are no symptoms (i.e. car not revving erratically or anything!), and for the past few days the gauge seems to have decided to play again !

Andy
 
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