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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Buicknick72" data-source="post: 1134460" data-attributes="member: 17991">That's how a car acts if the T-stat is stuck open.  Idling and even low speed city driving will allow the engine to get up to operating temps- with none or little air moving past the radiator, it has little cooling effect allowing the car to warm up.  Once you start driving the radiator is cooling the coolant, and with a stuck open t-stat the cooling system is working at 100% and will bring the temp down as much as it could.  With older cars that have mechanical fans a stuck t-stat never allows the engine to warm up, even at idle since the radiator has cooling effect.I've had plenty of stuck t-stats, and that is stuck.  Or installed backwards, install the new one how it says to regardless of how the old one in installed.Also if it had a 160 in there and it was working properly at 160, the engine would reach 160 just as quick as it would reach 160 with a 180 tstat.  Only difference is it would stay at 160, but would never go below 160.  So the needle on the gauge would just be on the low side, but would be relatively consistent.</blockquote>