Hey guys, this is my first time driving in the cold winter and wanted to ask if its normal for the coolant temp to drop on the dash when driving in the cold. I've noticed a few times that it would be at normal operating temp then drop a little. Any ideas? 98 GS4 by the way.

 

Sure. This is why you will see diesels with their grille covered when operating in very cold weather. The radiator paired with cold air will do its job too well.

No snow or real cold weather on a regular basis here in my part of Cali so I never experienced it myself but it sounds normal to me.

 

Yea I figured. Would like to get some thoughts and experiences about this from you guys in the cold climates

 

It really depends on your car's maintenance history and where you're driving.

A cold snap in my area drove the temperature down to -4F recently. I normally won't drive my car when it gets down to those temps because I don't even have a block heater... but no choice, I needed the car on a couple of days.

I had no problems with the temp indicator. It sat exactly where it normally is. If you can, invest in a bluetooth obd plug which can stream data to a tablet and see what your radiator's really doing.

 

I live in Denver and have a bluetooth obd2 that I rotate between our 3 cars and between summer and cold winters, the coolant temp will range from lower 180 - 200. With that the arctic front that came through a couple weeks ago, my GS was running below 190F on and off freeway.

 

I didn't see enough of your symptoms. If they're anything like what I had, then I had a stuck thermostat. If your car doesn't get up to temp at highway speeds, or if it goes up only when you slow down, then possibly, you have a stuck thermostat.

Having a digital gauge has taught me that the stock gauge is made to not freak people out. Here's all the info but it's in Celsius.
Start driving and gauge starts moving up at about 45.
By 55-60 it's at "operating temperature"
Actual operating temp is 88. ()
Needle doesn't budge at all until 117 degrees (because water is under pressure). If you don't believe me, look up Mercedes gauge clusters on newer ones. Redline is listed as 120 degrees.
Anyway. My point being that from about 55 to 117 degrees that needle is programmed to tell you that everything is A-OK. So the fact that your needle is DROPPING, means you're going below 55 degrees which I believe is way too low. Hope this rant helped.