It does get cold in NE! I was in the Berkshires, on the NY/MA line for 9+ years. Then I had a 1 ton Dodge Power Wagon, with the 318 V8: In Jan/Feb, I waited for the sun to put some heat on the truck before attempting to start it
If you haven't, perhaps you should try the heated dipstick to keep the oil warmer overnight.
My VR6 A3 does not get up to operating temp until drive down Pacific Coast Highway 10 miles and back. 5 3/4 qts of oil in the sump takes a while to heat up to 180 +, with the coolant reaching about the same or higher, ie, 190,
How are you reading the temp? The gauge is basically an emergency light, not really useful for a true temp. You need to drive the car to warm it up, as others have said. Find someone with vagcom to get an actual reading.
Seeing as winter has fully hit new england now I have been letting the a3 warm up in the driveway in the mornings. I noticed that after 10 mins or so the car was not warm at all so I started letting it idle for about 20 minutes. Even then the car is stone cold and the temp needle is still buried on the cold side. It's not until about 25-30 minutes that needle just begins to creep up a bit, and even then the heat from the vents is less than luke warm. I have noticed that when driving, having not let it idle in the driveway, it takes twice as long as my STI used to take to get heat. Does anyone else experience this or is it more likely that my thermostat is stuck open, not allowing the car to warm up quickly?
