Engine temperature

Go to ScanGauge's Toyota-specific support page, which happens to point back here to PriusChat and to CleanMPG.com.

 

Take a look at Adrian Black's Xgauge Spreadsheet; you probably want Inverter Coolant Temp.

 

Modern engines mostly have cooling systems that flow through the heater all the time, using flaps to guide the air rather than stopping the coolant flow through the heater core. Although you can't dump the heater core into the system, turning the heat on will still have a cooling effect as you described, due to the extra fan in the heater, but not to such a great degree.

 

Many reasons to show engine temperature:

1. Knowing when the engine is warmed up and it's safe to accelerate harder, if desired.
2. Indicating when one is creeping above normal operating temperature, such as when climbing a long hill at high altitude on a hot day, in time to turn off the AC and turn on the heater, or slow down.
3. A wide variety of incipient problems often are indicated by anomalous temp gauge behavior, giving time to address them before they leave one on the road. The same goes for knowing ones oil pressure, oil temperature, and charging system voltage.

Given the choice, I'd much rather have the above information than the cost per gallon calculator and some of the "feel good" mileage history indicators.

 

What do you consider "better oil", higher viscosity? How high can one go?

 

I use a Bluetooth obdII dongle plugged in and use the torque app on my phone to monitor temps and other things.

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Pulease, just drive it.

 

I found coolant temp informative. It's in there, would love to see it displayed on the dash. In the intermim, ScanGauge or myriad phone apps in conjunction with a OBD dongle can show it. Still, I don't think the OBD port is designed for constance connection; I started getting error messages on the dash (Check Hybrid System) so discontinued use.

 

I have had my Scangauge connected over 4 years and have never seen such complaint from the car.

 

My always-connected ScanGauge never gives any such trouble, but I had a different J1962 cable with unplated pins that worked fine at first, but after a few years was like comm-errors-in-a-can.

 

I’d agree with Ken2116, because when I tried storming up the ridges of the Appalachians at a constant 70 mph, the Scanguage II reported ICE coolant temp rising slowly to 204 degrees Fahrenheit, which is noticeably higher than the normal 194-196 range. Slowing down to 60 mph for the next ridge climb kept the coolant temp under 200, so that info helped alter my driving tactics.
Similarly, when the #2 HV battery temperature sensor gets over 40 degrees Celsius and the battery fan motor goes to level 4 or 5, I try to avoid any sharp charging or discharging from the HV battery to try to moderate those higher battery temps.
(This can be interpreted as either simple obsessive-compulsive disorder, or just a residual habit based on continuously monitoring aircraft systems whilst flying over many years, but some types of complex , human-controlled systems do better when monitored for boundary conditions.j

 

Here's a photo of my using the "base" (aka free) Torque App on my aftermarket 9.0 Android HU . . .

 

I have 4 3rd Gen Priuses, and one of them had recently used up a large portion of the engine coolant, with none left in the reservoir tank, due to a head gasket issue. I suspect the coolant temps were creeping up at some time due to this and I'd like to have caught it early. I'm trying to find a good ODB display that I can always see the temperature now.

 

I use a "P10" OBD2 display. It is small and not very expensive. Just search eBay or Amazon. User rjparker had a few posts stating that he used a P10 display. I looked at it and decided to buy one a year ago.

There are many OBD2 displays that can monitor engine coolant temperature. Just search and find one that you like.

Picture below:

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