I appreciate that this might be little more than paranoia on my part but I've just observed something odd with the water temperature on my A3 ('99 1.8T factory standard!) that I've never seen before in a year of ownership...

I was nearing the end of a brief journey from home to work and back (i'd say less than 20 miles round-trip, half-hour total journey time; mainly motorway) whereby I became practically obssessed by the behavior of my water temperature gauge: In the last few miles of my journey, just as I was leaving the motorway I saw the temperature needle drop to below 85°C; it's normally between 85°C & 90°C. As I made my way through a couple of 40mph roads the temperature began dropping further still where it bottomed out at about 79°C - I have never seen it drop that low at the tail end of a good run! The outside temperature was +9°C so it wasn't exactly freezing either.

When I finally pulled up outside my flat I just sat at idle for a bit and watched as the temperature gauge made its slow crawl back up to 90°C.
I seldom hear the fan kick in (it's pretty quiet!) so I'm afraid I can't tell you if that was stuck on or not. The moment I arrived back at the flat I got out and put my ear to the grill; the fan definitely wasn't stuck on at that point!

Can anyone please tell me: Have I just witnessed an early warning sign to something that may grow into a complete ballache? Would the in-car computer warn me of anything potentially catastrophic??

Last year I had serious cooling issues with a Peugeot 306 D-Turbo which ultimately resulted in a trashed engine in a shell of a car which ultimately I had to sell for a miserable £50! (hence the paranoia!)


Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!