Hi all,
Seems my freelander (03, 1.8) has developed a problem with the temp gauge.

When I've been driving for a while, the temperature needle just drops to the bottom of the gauge. No warning lights, no fuss or anything. Occasionally the fan kicks in - but not always. If I stop and deadlock the car, leave it to settle and then restart it seems to have cleared itself.
I've tried to find a pattern and the only thing seems to be motorway driving.

I've had a look through the posts on here but so far they all seem to be the needle heading up into the red rather than dropping away.

I'm guessing it's some kind of electrical or sensor fault, but I don't have a clue where to start!

Any suggestions?
Thanks
Adrian

Do you have an ODB2 reader to check the reported temperature?

Are you certain that the gauge is faulty rather then the engine temp falling? Do you still get a good output from the heater, you should also be carefully monitoring the coolant level for any loss.

As Zefrench suggested first step is to use a OBD reader to read the temperature from the ECU - if you have an Android tablet or phone there are plenty of free Apps that can do this (Torque, Dynoscan etc.), you need a Bluetooth OBD adaptor which is about £10 on ebay. I'm sure there will be other apps for I-Pad and Windows, others may be able to suggest them?

I'm working on it being a sensor purely because the needle literally drops as it would when you turn the ignition off rather than gradually over a period of time as you'd expect with something cooling gradually.

There appears to be no sign of any leakages either. Engine had a rebuild about a year ago just before I bought the car and I've given it a good going over at the weekend looking for leaks.

As for an OBD reader - not got one, but I guess I can make the next stop eBay! Realy not that sharp on engines, but I'll give it a go!

Thanks guys!