The temp reading for the car always reads out (on the digital guage) about middle of the guage whilst driving along normally but when sitting still or waiting in traffic, the temp shoots right up to about 85% (never touches red) -the cooling fan cuts-in and brings it down to about 75%. I've never experience any actual overheating problems as such, but wanted to check if this was normal (just so Im not causing engine damage)? I think the cooling fan seems to be waiting a bit too long to cut in....?

I use 0W 40 Mobil 1 fully synthetic engine oil as the 10W 30 (I think that's the officially recommended one) is only available here in cheap mineral oils (from what I've seen). Is that a problem? It does seem to use a lot of that oil/

I'm in UK if that's relevant -no extremes of weather.

thanks

 

Sounds fine to me. When the car is not moving and the fans are off, there is no air movement accross the radiator fins. Thus, there is no cooling to the coolant that circulates through the radiator. As soon as you move air through the fins, either via the fans or the car moving, you provide a method of lowering the coolant temps.