Malfunctioning Ambient Temperature Gauge - 2004 Subaru Forester

Question

I own a 2004 Subaru Forester XS with 102,000 miles on it and required service and inspections just completed.

Now the Ambient Temperature Gauge keeps malfunctioning - often sticks at 77; after a few hours it shows the correct outside temperature. What could be wrong?

The mechanic cannot explain to me why the gauge starts to work after a few hours if I stop the car and go shopping. When I return, the gauge starts working again. He says it is not a loose connection but he has not checked any of this out yet.

By the way, the mechanic did disconnect and drain the AC system while he was working on the car -- I do not know why he did this although I think it was a mistake since I was not charged for this. The AC works fine now as it did before.this link shows where the sensor is that the mechanic pointed me to on the dashboard of the passenger side.

Answer 1

Sounds like the temperature sensor is broken. A new one is $40-$55, and it's a 30 minute job to replace if you've never done it before (it lives behind the grill in front of the radiator). Not uncommon for these to fail on Subarus and give weird readings.

Following Paulster2's comment, here's an image of what the sensor looks like;

In this image (of a 2007 Forester), the sensor is in the yellow outlined location.