After my mechanic changed out the water pump, flushed the coolant, and replaced the tstat, my temp gauge rarely hits 9 o'clock. It's about 45 degrees outside and after going 20 miles on the interstate, it finally decided to budge from not even reading anything to about an 8 o'clock position. Only on rare occasions does it not even budge, but generally, it always hits 8 o'clock as the max point.

On a 250 mile trip, it showed 9 o'clock throughout the entire interstate, and on the way home last night from work (another 20 miles), it also reached 9 o'clock. But this occurence is about as rare as it not even budging.

One mechanic said, it's cooling better (when it shows 8 o'clock), while another said it needs to hit normal operating temp (9 o'clock).

There have been no spikes in the gauge. So, can I rule out the temp compensation board in the cluster? FYI, I got the tstat from iPD, and it is the same degree tstat as my old one.

Thoughts?

Thanks.
Eric