Thermostat issues... or?

[grenhall]

Hi everyone!

I'm a new member here from Sweden. I've owned BMW's on and off during my 12 years of driving. It's been a true pleasure and because of a upcoming house purchase + new kid, number 2, coming in march I recently sold my 2010 320d Touring and replaced it with a 2002 BMW X5 3.0i with 14K miles.

I'll upload pictures soon so we won't have a thread with "this thread is worthless without pictures"-sign.

Now from history to present I have one issue with the car, of course, and that is with the coolant temperature.

It seems that the car won't reach 90°C in working temperature. When I'm driving on the highway or on country roads temperature will be at about 68-70°. When we had been driving for about 1h and I left the car running for about 10 minutes temperature got up to 75° but after we started driving the temperature went down again leaving us at 69°.

So my question is would this be a thermostat issue or could it be the EGR-sensor? My car is really hot inside and in my experience with a bad thermostat it's kind of hard to get the warm air flowing inside.

What does the experts here say?

Thanks a lot for an awesome board with massive knowledge!

//Mattias

EDIT: I've measured the coolant temperature by unlocking the OBD-C menu in the cluster.

[tmv]

When our X5 had the T-stat failed in open position, we experienced the same thing. The temp needle moved to 11 o'clock position when driving on the highway. It took very long for the car to warm up. I pulled the ODBII code and it had P0128 pending. Replaced the T-stat and everything was normal again.
Hope this help. I'd have it replaced ASAP as your mpg goes down hill plus it's bad for engine components.

P.S: thinking about throwing the "worthless" sign but I'll give you a break until your problem solved

[grenhall]

Originally Posted by tmv

When our X5 had the T-stat failed in open position, we experienced the same thing. The temp needle moved to 11 o'clock position when driving on the highway. It took very long for the car to warm up. I pulled the ODBII code and it had P0128 pending. Replaced the T-stat and everything was normal again.
Hope this help. I'd have it replaced ASAP as your mpg goes down hill plus it's bad for engine components.

P.S: thinking about throwing the "worthless" sign but I'll give you a break until your problem solved

Thanks a lot for your swift reply. I'll have it looked at asap. Is it worth to replace the waterpump as well? The stealers here in Sweden are looking for $500 to replace the thermostat. As I figure it the only really tough bit about changing it is that I need to remove the fan + bleed the coolant from the system. Correct?


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[SlickGT1]

$500 for a t-stat. I want whatever they are smoking. Search site via the search link on top. Search for thermostat DIY. Of take it to an Indy, can't be more that 100-150 with parts.

[grenhall]

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

$500 for a t-stat. I want whatever they are smoking. Search site via the search link on top. Search for thermostat DIY. Of take it to an Indy, can't be more that 100-150 with parts.

They're authorized BMW dealers. I'm not sure what was included in the price but if my experience is correct then it would be thermostat + coolant + work.

My only problem is that I don't have a garage to work in and it's about -5C outside. So not really in the mood for DIY. I'll try to find an Indy who can help me out.


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