My outside temperature gauge is giving a false reading when i start my 8. It first starts very high then gradually lowers to the correct temperature after a few minutes. Ive tried searching for this but was unable to find anything. Is this normal or do i have some sort of problem?

 

Where do you park? If you keep it in a garage overnight - it will give a warmer reading until it adjusts to the outside temperature.

 

No its kept on my drive way all night

 

the sensor is on the front of your dash. it is ambient temp. not outside temp. When your car is parked inside or out it is always warmer inside than out, which is why your temp. reading is higher when you first get in.

 

I just noticed the same thing last night. I was leaving the bar (only one beer) and when i started her up the temperature said 62. Which i don't know what the temperature was in cincinnati last night, but i do know that it wasn't 62. My car is pretty new still and i haven't really paid much attention to outside temp readings, but i'm going to start watching it now.

 

Leaving the car parked after driving and then coming back before it has thoroughly been given a chance to reach ambient conditions will give a high reading from the heat radiating from the engine compartment (that is why it said 62 after a beer), once you start moving the convective heat transfer from the air overcomes in heat radiating from the engine and you get an accurate reading.

 

Nope, sure isn't.

The sensor is mounted on he bottom of the front bumper support, left side.
In other words, it is mounted in the radiator air inlet, just under the driver-side headlight.

The reason it reads higer is because it is protected and sits in warm air radiating from the engine compartment.
It doesn't read true ambient until you move the car foward for a minute or two.

 

Nice...than what is that little round thing in front of the center speaker. My mazda guy told me thats what that was. Thank you for the correction though.

 

Maybe you can elaborate a bit. I just looked at my dash after reading this and I don't have any sort of round thing anywhere near my center speaker grille.
I've had that top panel off a bunch of times and there is no wiring under there beyond the harness for the center speaker and the TPMS.

 

on my car about half way between the center speaker and the windsheild there is a small round circle that looks like a light senson. Somebody else told me that cars with climate control have these and i do not have climate control.

 

He is correct, that is where the 'sun' sensor would be if we had the climate control. It biases the a/c setting when it detects high infrared hitting the dash.
(....but we don't get climate control.)

The diagram only shows the plug from the harness to the sensor - the actual sensor pokes thru the bottom of the grille on the drivers side, looks like a black pen lid. Spray it with some hot water to test.

S