I just got my TL, and have about 650 miles on it, and am loving every minute of it. Today was the second detail for the car. I noticed when cleaning the engine covers that the engine was very hot. I'm aware that it will tend to get pretty hot after being brought up to operating temperature, but I had waited about 30 minutes after turning the car off to clean under the hood, and it was still hot enough to almost burn my hands on the engine covers...

I don't have any indicator lights coming on, and the temp gauge on the dash reads just a little bit below the center between C and H, but I was curious as to how hot the engine is supposed to get? I would imagine that during break in, the engine will get hotter than normal, because of the increased friction, but how hot is that?

Also, the manual says that the break in period is 600 miles, so, I've been babying the car up until now...now I'm starting to allow the RPM's to climb a bit, and drive the car a bit more normally...is 600 miles too soon for this? I don't want to damage the engine from heat...

Thanks to anyone with some input on this.

 

yeah mine gets pretty hot too

 

Ours too, even the sun seems to make that compartment bake, the plastic too hot to touch. As long as the dial isn't on the H I figure I'm game.

 

This is quite normal for all recent cars as the design of the front does not let air circulate freely when you park the car.

Heat want to rise but has nowhere to go with the hood close.

 

yep, should be normal unless as crazymjb mentioned, the needle is near the letter H!

 

Ok. I was just curious...

Thanks for the info.

(I love this forum!)

 

Hood scoop?

 

Just cut a cd sized hole in the middle of the hood, that will pretty much act like a supercharger too. Thats atleast what i have heard.

 

There is a lot of material crammed into a rather tight and confining area under the hood of our cars, so expect there to be a lot residual of engine heat for some time after having parked your car. If you are really concerned about this, raise your hood for several hours to hasten cooling. Otherwise, don't worry about it. You can bet the manufacturer took all of this into consideration when designing this car.