OK so I know it is winter here in England, but Volvos are Swedish and it gets mighty cold over there. So why does my V40 not warm up to proper operating temperature when cruising at 70mph for over 2 hours in 5C ambient. The water only reached 58C and the oil remained 'cold'. It runs fine around town and gets up to temperature, but get on the motorway and the wind chill sucks all the heat out of the engine and as a result the heater remains on max to keep the inside temperature bearable. Is there a winter pack which prevents this wind chill problem?

It's a 97 2.0SE by the way so I know it's not generally available in the US.

 

I would check and see if your thermostat is broke.The older Volvo's are at about the time now when the thermostats are breaking.If it did break it will mess with the cooling system pretty bad.

 

yes would have to concur that it looks like the thermostat is shot. The car heats up normally if stationary but as soon as air is flowing across the radiator then the temperature plumets. Not sure if there is a certain percentage of water which always flows through the radiator but to get a drop of about 10C in 30s when only doing 30mph indicates that it is a bit more than a bypass quantity.

Another job for the weekend.

 

When it is cold like that if the antifreeze is flowing to fast through the system it wont heat up that much because it is moving to fast.Now if it was 100 degrees outside it would probaly be the opposite.It would be running hot because it will be moving to fast to cool down.