New owner with a couple of questions

[e1_griego]

Hello all, new Legacy owner with a couple of questions.

The car in question is a 2001 Legacy GT Limited 5spd with 138k miles. Got this thing for pretty damned cheap, but had to catch up on some maintenance right off the bat. Had the timing belt, water pump, tensioner, belts, and radiator hoses replaced as well fluid flushes for the diff/tranny. Car runs great, just a couple of slight issues (or probably non-issues since I'm overly critical of most things car related ;) ).

1. The radiator fans seem to run more frequently than they should. The temp gauge (dummy gauge) stays in the middle but I know those things tend to be 3 position gauges that don't really tell you anything. Can anyone tell me at what temp the fans are supposed to kick on? And at what point the dummy gauge on the dash goes to the high mark? On a 50* day like today I wouldn't expect them to be on, but they are.

2. Seems like the car has bad grounds -- the cluster lights flicker if, for example, i have a turn indicator on (CEL is intermittent for knock sensor, but if CEL is on and I hit the turn indicators the CEL itself will change brightness in alternating time with the indicator). I tried cleaning all the ground wires, but that didn't seem to help. Multimeter on the battery shows 14v so alternator seems to be working fine.

Thanks for your help!

Pic of the car:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/e1griego/DSC00839Medium.jpg

And my other baby:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/e1griego/DSC00180.jpg

[jey]

Radiator fans automatically kick on when the A/C is on too, in addition to the temperature threshold.

[ShadowGT]

I don't think the temp gauge is a three position gauge. On my 98 Legacy it was reading a few ticks above the half way point, after I changed the thermostat the normal running temp is a bit below the halfway point.

I've owned this Legacy now for a bit less than a year and I've seen the temp gauge register all over the place and I found it to be rather dynamic in it's reading.

14 volts? Pardon me for my not knowing, but is that normal? I was using my multimeter a lot last week looking for a good ground to install my driving lights and I started testing everything because I never owned a multimeter before. I just remember the battery giving me 12 volts consistently.

As for the first part of your question, I really don't know what the temperature has to be for the fans to come on. I've only noticed mine coming on when the car goes into an extended idle.

Think of your flickering lights as a faulty circuit somewhere. Your multimeter tells you the battery is putting out ample power and it's getting charged. That means between the battery and instrument cluster you have a fault, a loose ground, a bad connection and so on.

[e1_griego]

Well, I would think that fans wouldn't come on unless the car was registering extra heat -- the temp gauge stays at 50% but still the fans come on. I'm assuming there's some sort of coolant temp sensor that kicks them on -- guess I'll find an FSM and track it down myself.

And yes, 14v is normal (at least in every other car I've dealt with) for a charging system.

[jey]

I don't think the temp gauge is a three position gauge. On my 98 Legacy it was reading a few ticks above the half way point, after I changed the thermostat the normal running temp is a bit below the halfway point.

I've owned this Legacy now for a bit less than a year and I've seen the temp gauge register all over the place and I found it to be rather dynamic in it's reading.


I support that finding. When purging the cooling system the other day I sat with my OBD-II reader to monitor the coolant temperature and I found that the gauge did go up and down exactly with the reading.

However the gauge is tiny so I suspect few of us will be able to detect up and down movement of the needle under normal operating circumstances - your cooling system should do a good job keeping the temperature steady.


Well, I would think that fans wouldn't come on unless the car was registering extra heat -- the temp gauge stays at 50% but still the fans come on. I'm assuming there's some sort of coolant temp sensor that kicks them on -- guess I'll find an FSM and track it down myself.


Let us know if you find that temperature threshold - I was curious myself the other day when the temp hit 170 or so and the thermostat started to open but the fans didn't kick on yet. Just letting it idle in cold weather was obviously not enough to get the fans going.

[birukun]

Do you know if the head gaskets were replaced before you bought it?

[e1_griego]

Dunno if they were, but I suspect not. No sign of coolant loss, leaks, or anything else though.

My understanding is that the phaseII is less inclined to blow the hg, and if it does, it develops an external leak rather than leaking into the combustion chamber.

I'm not having any overheating issues or anything, mostly just me being curious and looking for a problem when there probably isn't one.

My mrs. drives the car more than I do, so I haven't paid a ton of attention to the temp gauge. I want to buy a scangaugeII now haha.