Cold night, cold engine.

[Dragonstaff]

Tonight I brought my son's ST 1300 back from Adelaide, and it ended a pretty cool ride. What surprised me is that as the air temp (as indicated by the sensor on the bike ) dropped, so did the engine temp, from a starting point of the normal three bars at an air temp around 19 or 20 degrees, down to one bar by the time the air temp dropped to 10 degrees. Fuel consumption also increased as this happened, from 18.5 km/l down to 16.7.

My question for the brains trust and those who regularly ride in cooler climes, is this: Is this normal, or should I be looking for something? Other than this somewhat aberrant behaviour, the rest of the ride was fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I haven't yet ridden mine in quite such cold conditions, but even at an indicated 12 or 13 degrees, mine is still on three bars of engine temp.

[ruSTynutz]

Mine will often sits on 2 bars, Dave...
I think its even hovered on one once or twice too although i try not to ride if its too freezing cold.

[Jdbiker]

Normal engine temperature has always been at 3 bars on mine regardless of ambient temperature, even at -1degrees. Could be a thermostat issue, check condition of coolant and change if required.