Once it's warmed up mine is almost always over 200. 220 is not rare if working it at all. My engine oil runs about 5 to 10 degrees cooler.
Same. On a 900 mile round trip to Florida, I was watching this slowly tick up to the 200’s and thought that was odd.
Thanks for confirming, @flip. I did see mine go as high as 203but thought that as long as the gauge didn’t touch the red, I should be fine.
Normal operating temperature is 206-215. Most of the time you won’t see it getting that high during normal driving though. 185-205 is probably typical.
Factory gauges are weight biased. Anyone that has run real gauges know the numbers float almost constantly. Particularly in stop and go traffic. Joe Schmoe car owner doesn't want to see that cause they would freak out and bring the car in because "something's wrong". So they weight the reading so a small fluctuation in real temp or pressure gets normalized at "good".
Bronco has a small remote heat exchangerTransmission coolers are usually built into the radiator, therefor trans temp would be close to engine coolant temp. HD vehicles often have an additional trans fluid cooler (cooled by air). I don't know exactly what the Bronco setup is...
A quick Google search says optimum temp is 175*-225*. At 240* the fluid begins to be adversely affected. Here's a chart from TCI Automotive:
Us manual folks don't get such luxuries.
