its been happening for awhile but just want to take care of it now. car takes forever to warm up ~10 minutes or so and when it finally does and i start driving and turn on the heater, the temp gauge drops down to near C even while driving for awhile.

what does a stuck open/closed thermostat look like?

 

Thermostat is probably stuck open. Same thing happened to my civic. That's a cheap fix.
The cold air/constanly circulating coolant is not allowing your car to warm up to normal operating temp. Not good for gas milage, but I don't think you're hurting anything.
Another (unlikely) scenario is that your gauge is screwed up.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thewrai6th &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thermostat is probably stuck open. Same thing happened to my civic. That's a cheap fix.
The cold air/constanly circulating coolant is not allowing your car to warm up to normal operating temp. Not good for gas milage, but I don't think you're hurting anything.
Another (unlikely) scenario is that your gauge is screwed up.</TD></TR></TABLE>

i dont think its the gauge, heater doesnt get hot. freeze my *** off late nights/mornings lol

 

not to treadjack, but did/do either of your guys cars cool down when idling or blow out cold air when the rpms drop, like at a stoplight??

 

Mine does

 

Yes my civic did that, temps drop while idling.

 

Just replace it .. its like 5 bucks at the part store. Same thing happened to my girls car, and when i went to replace it i found out that some dumbass never even put one in..

 

Mine was having the same problems. I replaced the thermostat, car warms up great. No more cold drives to work for me! Oh and seems kinds wierd but my tranny feels better too.....seems like the tranny fluid warms up more, possibly making for smoother shifts?