Outside Temp Strangeness - anybody else expeience this?

[rao]

I drove my Legacy for the first time in about 6 weeks today (I had rebuilt the engine when I parked it so I was good to go )

 

I will leave out a long discussion how I realized again that everything that I read is completely true, the car truly is a pile of junk (barely) on wheels.

 

One very strange thing did happen though. The car barely started - it had just enough juice to start the car. The Outside temp sensor was LOCKED on 31 degrees. I drive the car for about 35 minutes (almost time to change the oil again) and the temp moved up to 43 degrees. Ambient temps here today are around 75. I tried disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it and the temp wouldn't budge. I checked the sensor and it connector and re-connected it and the temp wouldn't budge. I probably started the car 4-5 times while trying to sort this out.

 

The cold reading played havoc with the HVAC system which is annoying when it is "working" properly.

 

I then parked the car for a few hours. When I went to check the sensor again it was at 78 degrees

 

Has anybody else had this happen? Not a big deal, just a little strange.

[sactojesse]

My outside temperature sensor has been very slow to react the entire time I've owned my 05 LGT wagon, nearly six years. Upon start-up, it typically registers whatever the outside temperature was when I last shut the car off. It then takes 10-20 minutes after start-up before it starts to adjust to the actual outside temperature. Annoying, especially in the summertime when daytime and nighttime temperatures routinely vary by 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit here. Sucks when your HVAC system thinks it's 58 degrees outside and it's actually 98 degrees.

[DriverX]

Could it be set to display celsius?

[FrozenNorthLGT]

Could it be set to display celsius?

 

Unlikely since when it changed to to 78* that would have been 172F...lol...

 

I have read bad things about the outside air temp sensor failing though....Rao, have you been using mobil 1?

[Scooter]

I used to have A LOT or trouble with mine. Sometimes it would display really high temperatures and then sometimes for months at a time it would display only really low temperatures. Occassionally it would display really high temperatures and really low temperatures in the same day, which was very annoying!

 

But since I moved from Detroit back home to SoCal, it seems to be working just fine, displaying only really nice temperatures.

 

[outahere]

It's time to change your sensor fluid.

[SCSpecB]

Mine worked great for the first year or so, now it hardly moves or takes forever to move off of whatever the temp is when I start the car...BUT I do have a specB, so maybe its reading the temp in some other part of the world? Who knows, I don't question it.

[jagcars26]

Mine acted up last week fr the 1st time. Outside temp was around 65-70 it read 30 . I figured well that sensor is borked.

About two days latter it was back to normal.

[joeblow]

That's what you get for never driving your car and keeping it plastic wrapped from the time you buy it

[fishbone]

Rob, never had a problem with mine but I will say that I think the position of the temp sensor for the cabin sucks both in quality and location. Probably the culprit of our top quality auto climate control .... Another thing I dislike is the slow reaction time of the outside temp, it "polls" the sensor way too slow imho. I pull out of the 45*F garage and it takes half mile or more to dip down to the true 30 or so that is outside.

[CasopoliS]

I had to wrap my cables in RF protective wire mesh sleeve. I was picking up frequencies from the engine bay, probably from the RPM signal wire or injector pule wire.

Once I did that, my temps stabilized and became accurate. My climate control now works like a charm as well.

 

Now if I could only get my engine to stop ticking.:spin:

[OBieXT]

I've heard this can be a problem unless you switch to German synthetic sensor fluid.

[BrooklynBoy]

Never had a problem with mine.....it tells me what the temp is going to be 2 minutes before it happens.

(seriously though.....you probably have a bad sensor. Mine reacts to temp differences like garage to street in less than 2 minutes )

[jmorris6689]

yeah ive had the exact same problem. i took out my battery to install a step colder spark plugs, it took me a while to install new ones because i was at work try to help customers and do plugs at the same time. long story short i had the battery out for a few hours. the car started up ran fine but my temp said it was 43 but it was over 80 outside. it took almost 24 hours for it to read close to correct. it has been maybe 3 weeks now and it is still just a few degrees off of what i think it should be. i figured i some how bumped the outside air temp sensor or it just take a while for it to re learn itself. this is odd that someone has had similar problems.

[pillboy]

I've never had it happen. But I haven't driven my car since I bought it.

[EquinnoxX]

+1 on sensor fluid. I had the dealer change mine last time I went.

[burnout8488]

Another thing I dislike is the slow reaction time of the outside temp, it "polls" the sensor way too slow imho. I pull out of the 45*F garage and it takes half mile or more to dip down to the true 30 or so that is outside.

 

I think this may be due to the construction of the sensor, not the polling rate. Isn't the sensor totally encased in hard plastic? It probably takes that half mile just for the temperature of the sensor case to equalize with the outside temp.

[GoSix]

Mine started to act funny last summer, slow to ramp up. It has been making my car kick in the heater when It's 100F+ outside. I replaced the sensor a couple months ago, but that didn't work. I have the car at the dealership now. They *just* called me and said the outside sensor IS NOT connected to the HVAC, and should not impact it. Is that true?

[fishbone]

I don't know if this is normal but I do feel the intensity of the AC to oscillate sometimes on hot days, possibly as an effort to reach the target temp set for inside. Are you sure that's not what you are experiencing, GoSix? Might be that when the AC ramps down, you get some hot air coming in seeing that it's significantly hotter outside.

[GoSix]

I don't know if this is normal but I do feel the intensity of the AC to oscillate sometimes on hot days, possibly as an effort to reach the target temp set for inside. Are you sure that's not what you are experiencing, GoSix? Might be that when the AC ramps down, you get some hot air coming in seeing that it's significantly hotter outside.

 

Yeah, on hot days it takes the AC a long time to kick in full blask. It will start blowing on the lowest setting, or even in heater mode. Then it gradually ramps up to full blast after several minutes. There was a time when it used to go full blast from the get go. Not anymore

[fishbone]

I set it to recirc on particularly hot days, that helps it cool the car down faster. As a matter of fact it does that on it's own.

Might wanna have your AC system checked out?

[GoSix]

I set it to recirc on particularly hot days, that helps it cool the car down faster. As a matter of fact it does that on it's own.

Might wanna have your AC system checked out?

 

When it "realizes" how hot it is, it switches to recirc automatically. The car is in the shop getting checked out as I type this, which is how I found this thread actually

[Scooby Fan]

I have had this problem since the car was new...been into the dealers for it a few times. Here is their explanation. The sensor is somehow "Keyed" to the anti-lock brakes so it will only change the temperature every so many miles or kilometers..... my problem has been that in cold weather the indicator does not change for days at a time....a few weeks ago it stayed on 3*C for 4 days even though the actual outside temp was in the 13*-15* range......I took it for a longer drive....about 12 km....sure enough it changed to the correct temp at about 8 km and has been fine ever since. My normal days driving tends to be a series of short trips...usually under 5 km per trip....according to the tech at the dealership that is not enough to have the sensor send a new temp to the display unit. Who knows for sure..........but everytime I take it for a road trip it works perfectly :)

[GoSix]

I have had this problem since the car was new...been into the dealers for it a few times. Here is their explanation. The sensor is somehow "Keyed" to the anti-lock brakes so it will only change the temperature every so many miles or kilometers..... my problem has been that in cold weather the indicator does not change for days at a time....a few weeks ago it stayed on 3*C for 4 days even though the actual outside temp was in the 13*-15* range......I took it for a longer drive....about 12 km....sure enough it changed to the correct temp at about 8 km and has been fine ever since. My normal days driving tends to be a series of short trips...usually under 5 km per trip....according to the tech at the dealership that is not enough to have the sensor send a new temp to the display unit. Who knows for sure..........but everytime I take it for a road trip it works perfectly :)

 

That doesn't sound right. I can't believe they would make a system so complex as to work off the ABS. My car for the first 4 years, used to show the correct temp right away. In fact, if it was parked in the sun, it would read higher than actual and ramp down to correct temp in a couple minutes. It no longer does that, and even after a half hour of driving, it will still read several degrees low.

[Gire]

This could end up being the biggest mystery in the history of lgt.com....