Scott, You wrote: "You could also try blocking off radiator air inlet, like all big trucks do in the winter. You should have your heater hoses insulated, and run the warmest thermostat you can find." This is what I thought would do the trick at the beginning. In fact, the problem is not one of overcooling (if it were, a closed thermostat would immediately solve the problem) but of UNDERheating. That's what was bothering me to begin with. If the thermostat is closed, it shouldn't matter what happens with the radiator, the coolant lines, the heater cores, etc. as there is no circulation anyway. Testing the tstat and finding it good left me stymied. Again, this is a problem with lack of heat generation, not overcooling. You could pour the coolant out on the ground and it would still run cold (because in fact, it's not "running" in these condtions, just sucking in cold air.) Putting a manual bypass on the idle switch should solve this problem. But I'm wondering what that would do in other conditions, especially when you really are idling. Wouldn't it produce an abnormally high/fluctuating idle? Also, it seems like when you bypassed the idle/decel switch in times of ordinary, ie. not freezing weather, deceleration, you would get worse gas mileage. Any 2.1-ers out there with this problem? I'm wondering if VW realized there was a design error and corrected it in later versions. Geza |
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