CDT - Feeling hot hot hot!

[Dave-M]

Just back from a week down in the New Forest, the first outing for the caravan this year.

We're only about 6 miles from the M6 but within a mile or so of joining the motorway I noticed the temperature gauge climbling, and climbing, and climbing right up to the 3/4 mark Turning on the diagnostics showed 120C - so heaters full on and an anxious wait to see if the temperature would keep climbing. As we limped along on a light throttle the temperature slowly came down to 116C so we continued to the nearest services to assess the situation.

Once we'd stopped and popped the bonnet it became pretty obvious what the problem was - fan running at high speed, bypass hoses roasting hot, and a stone cold radiator - stuck thermostat. I'd done the in-line mod about 18 months ago, with the usual Renault 5 item, but of course when this type of thermostat fails, it sticks in the CLOSED position. I don't know if it had only just failed, or I'd just not noticed because of the months of cold weather we've had, but either way a quick root through the boot produced enough tools to pull out the faulty stat.

We were on our way again within 30 mins with no problems after that (apart from running at 1/4 on the temp gauge) and the Zed behaved faultlessly for the rest of the week