My 2010 civic has a digital water temperature gauge. The gauge does not display numbers, rather it has a LCD bar graph. During the spring, summer and fall the gauge displays 9 bars when the engine is fully heated, which is just shy of the halfway mark on the gauge.

In temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the gauge only rises to 4 to 7 bars, even when the car has been driven for over 15 minutes. An odd thing is, sometimes it will display a normal temperature of 9 bars, even on very cold days, say 25 degrees, but this is rare. The heater works OK, the air seems warm enough. It seems that if I turn heater off, that the temp will raise one or two bars.

Maybe these small engines just dont have enough mass to warm up in the winter?
Dealer says nothing is wrong with 2010 civic, but this does not seem right to me. Any ideas, thanks.

Heres the kicker, my old 2001 civic did the same thing in its older years, dealer said there was nothing wrong with that one either. I had replaced the thermostat in the 2001 thinking it was stuck open, but no help.