temperature reading

[fwb44]

How weird is this. Last Tuesday car went into body shop for 5 days for major repairs (wings, doors, tailgate, front panels, bumpers, usual E class malarkey) and when it came out today the temperature gauge to the L of the odometer was reading -38C, yes, minus thirty-eight degrees centigrade and has done so ever since, in 250 miles' mixed driving. Outside today was around +15-16 deg. C. The key was left in the ignition throughout the duration of the repair work. The car didn't go into an oven or for that matter a freezer during its repairs. Now, it's always registered the temperature perfectly consistently till now - sometimes at 1 or 2 deg. variance with other cars' readings, that's all, but always consistent.

Can anyone suggest how I might reset the temperature gauge, or otherwise what might have gone wrong with it?

 

[Brian WH]

How weird is this. Last Tuesday car went into body shop for 5 days for major repairs (wings, doors, tailgate, usual E class malarkey) and when it came out today the temperature gauge to the L of the odometer was reading -38C, yes, minus thirty-eight degrees centigrade and has done so ever since, in 250 miles' mixed driving. Outside today was around +15-16 deg. C. The key was left in the ignition throughout the duration of the repair work. The car didn't go into an oven or for that matter a freezer during its repairs. Now, it's always registered the temperature perfectly consistently till now - sometimes at 1 or 2 deg. variance with other cars' readings, that's all, but always consistent.

Can anyone suggest how I might reset the temperature gauge, or otherwise what might have gone wrong with it?

Looks as if it was disconected whilst in for repair and hasn't been reconnected again. Take the car back and get them to rectify it.

 

[fwb44]

Looks as if it was disconected whilst in for repair and hasn't been reconnected again. Take the car back and get them to rectify it.

Yup, that's probably what it'll come to, just wondered if anyone knew (I obviously don't) what to reconnect & where?

 

[grober]

Dont know position of the temperature sensor on your car, but chances are its located somewhere on front bumper assembly. Ask the bodyshop if they took off the front bumper before revealing there is a fault, cos if they admit that they did take it off, it puts you in a stronger position to ask for a replacement sensor if its kaput. Hopefully its just the sensor because the display unit is not cheap!! To be fair to them if they are not familiar with mercs it would be all too easy to damage / disconnect the sensor when removing the bumper but they are supposedlythe professionals

 

[fwb44]

Dont know position of the temperature sensor on your car, but chances are its located somewhere on front bumper assembly. Ask the bodyshop if they took off the front bumper before revealing there is a fault, cos if they admit that they did take it off, it puts you in a stronger position to ask for a replacement sensor if its kaput. Hopefully its just the sensor because the display unit is not cheap!! To be fair to them if they are not familiar with mercs it would be all too easy to damage / disconnect the sensor when removing the bumper but they are supposedlythe professionals

Spot on, the front bumper did come off, now we know where to start looking. The guy who did the work is an old old mate of mine, runs 2 Mercs himself, and his 2 brothers also, repairs & resprays them all the time & would never quibble, so there won't be any grief. Cheers!

 

[230K]

Hi

Temp sensor is beside the passenger side foglight, you would have to remove the front undershield which has screws in the wheel well (yes the difficult one) to get at the wires at the back of the temp sensor.

Check that your fog lights are working mine didnt when she returned from bodyshop for same.

Good morning,

230K

 

[fwb44]

Hi

Temp sensor is beside the passenger side foglight, you would have to remove the front undershield which has screws in the wheel well (yes the difficult one) to get at the wires at the back of the temp sensor.

Check that your fog lights are working mine didnt when she returned from bodyshop for same.

Good morning,

230K

Thanks again, some great knowledge here ... foglights are OK, one of them wasn't working anyway so had them checked at the time, we'll go for removing the front undershield as you suggest. Thanks a lot guys

 

[fwb44]

Temp sensor is beside the passenger side foglight, you would have to remove the front undershield which has screws in the wheel well (yes the difficult one) to get at the wires at the back of the temp sensor

Found it, plugged loose wire back in, temp. reading OK, 5 min job, didn't need to remove front undershield luckily, thanks for your assistance 230K