Oil cooler advise sort.

[Grumpyguts]

Hello from a cold wet Harrogate. Considering fitting an oil cooler to my GTX, it has the cooling canister fitted but feel it would benefit more from a "proper" piped up unit. Anybody got one fitted?

[bengould]

Hi,

Do you have an oil temp gauge? Is your oil regularly getting too hot? If not, don't bother.

You can over cool your oil, if it's not at the optimum temp it doesn't work as well.

You can get an oil cooler with a thermostat to combat this, but if your oil isn't overheating in the first place you might as well stick with the stock one.

Ben

[mark1gls]

The advantage of the water feed oil cooler just above the oil filter is that is also heats the oil when it's cold as the water heats up quicker than oil, it also cools the oil as the water is kept cool by the car radiator and the fan.
The air cooled oil cooler will only cool the oil if you are moving.
My Mk1 Scirocco does not have a oil cooler fitted and even driving on a motorway on a hot summers day with the revs at 4000 rpm for a couple of hours the oil was reading 115 oC and the danger temp is 150 oC
The Mk1 Golf with the water oil cooler usually sits at 90oC and will get to 105oC if pushing it.

Unless you are using the car for track days stick with what VW fitted, they have used the same design for years and years and it's still fitted to new car even now.

[the edmundator]

Your MFA will tell you what your oil temp is. As above, my standard GTX rarely ventures above 100C in normal driving; I think it went to about 105C when I was stuck in a traffic queue waiting to get into Goodwood.

[sabre0699]

Our 1983 gti had a traditional air to oil cooler and both my gtx and scala had the later water to oil cooler, the oil temperature was always lower on the latter two and the oil warm up was always quicker.

When the gti's original engine expired (replaced with a GTI engineering 1900 one from a 1989 car) and I left the water to oil cooler on that one

That said when my wife got the GT2 it had neither type so I fitted to original air to oil cooler to it (just because I could)

[mark1gls]

As you might of guessed I'm a fan of the water cooled oil cooler but as with anything metal with water running through it you must keep the coolant mixture in good condition and at the right mix for you will find in time the cooler can rust through and the water and oil will mix which is not great.

Mine is the original one fitted 27 years ago as I've looked after my car for 21 years so I know its had regular coolant changes.

[Grumpyguts]

Thanks for response guys, sounds like good advise to me, guess that will be me spending the money elsewhere this summer, which is no bad thing as need to get a new headlining and pillar trims done and up on a ramp for some waxoyl ! Cheers, happy Roccing.

[mark1gls]

Sound like a good plan.
I follow the saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it"