My car when cold starts normal and temp slowly raises as normal.
But at first time reaching the middle, goes little over it (3/4mm) then immediately falls down to middle and doesn't move from there in any case, never.
This behaviour appears only on cold startups.

So today I took the old lady for a ride: about 50 km return on the motorway, state road and hills, Ikea ( -.- ) and on the way back we climbed up over a mountain nearby, in order to "test" the engine on a more stressing situation on a steeply uphill road full of hairpin bends and to have a pause for a coffee before taking the road again highway heading home.

Average temperature 38° outside, the needle never moved a moment from the center as normal, even going up the mountain.

Only thing I had to notice is that as soon as we arrived, making maneuvers looking for a parking space, the idle was a bit unstable and same when we left, car wanted to shut off even with some choke, issue that was resolved after a few metres and idle turned normal: certainly the engine was "stressed" and hot, humidity was quite accentuated and there was something that car didn't like after that street, someone can help me understand what to investigate?


Anyway I will change the thermostat regardless and the 4 pipes that I see between the radiator and the tank but today's experience reassured me that the temperature management does its job anyway: maybe the issue on startup is only a "tired" thermostat?