The brand new thermostat wasn’t opening all the way. One new Gates thermostat fixed the issue.
I always use Premium Thermostats, which are billed to fail open. Gates or Stant are my favorite brands.
I did the timing belt water pump thing on my MK4 last year, and shortly after the test drive with fresh genuine VW antifreeze and while patting myself on the back for a job well done it occurred to me that I hadn't changed the thermostat. Sure enough a month or so ago when the first of the really cold whether started around here the temp gauge would only get to about halfway to normal during a trip to town and back. I tried the ol' cardboard in the grill routine for a couple of days until I got a chance to change the thermostat and that brought things back to normal.
i personally run a 90c/195f one, the GATES 33209. it gets cold here in WI and it will hold 192f on the highway with the heat at speed 1
I have an 06. Had the same issue. Bought a cheap thermostat which turned out to be no good but acted the same as the old thermostat. Then, I changed EVERYTHING else in the coolant system, lol. Switched to Gates, problem solved.
To complement this, the Gates thermostat I bought for a Mercedes M272 engine was identical to the Mercedes A2722000115, except that the Mercedes logo cast into the housing had been (mostly) ground down.
I've got a 13 sport with 135k miles on it. Only ever done oil changes, spark plugs, 12v battery and a thermostat. Other than that it’s been stupid reliable.
I have owned my B6 since new and had the thermostat replaced under Warranty around 36,000 miles, at that point the slow warm up was causing the MIL to illuminate with a error that basically said warm up outside specification.
After getting mine back together, and filling it back up with coolant, i found the new thermostat from the dealership was stuck wide open and the car wouldn’t get over 110*F.
we warrantied a Gates thermostat on a pentastar 3.6L three fkn times because the guy said it kept overheating going up hills. Originally replaced for P0128 thermostat code. Then we put an oem part in and it’s never overheated since.
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