I may have answered my own question...maybe some of you would like to confirm my suspicion of the gauge.
I just picked up a thermo scanner and this is what I found:
This reading is just after I turned the car off. While running it was hovering around 83C...IMHO the needle should read a hair above the second line on the dash gauge, correct? It doesn't... it reads just below the 3rd mark. It should be noted that the thermostat I installed is a OEM 80C unit which replaced a 70C unit by the same manufacturer.
This is what the temp gauge actually means in C. According to this my gauge is always reading in the high 95-105 range give or take a few degrees.
