Had this problem with my car since I got it.

91 Firebird with 3.1

Regular driving the car barely gets past 100 degrees!
Sitting in traffic heats up pretty high.I know for a fact my cooling fans dont work because the car go up to about 230 and they did not turn on.Thats not really a problem since it barely gets past 200 or so.Why does it run so damn cold when im driving?

Not to mention it burns twice as much gas when its this cold.

Whats going on?

 

It's normal to burn more gas while the motor is cold, the computer sends more fuel to the injectors. You should let the car warm up before driving it. Get new fans. Flush the rad.

 

Yeah I know it should burn much more gas..I eventully will get the fans fixed and the radiator was flushed about a month ago..

Why is it so low though?

 

Depending on where you are located, ambient air temperatures over the radiator may have a role.

 

After sitting in traffic and the temperature reaching 200, does it drop back down to 100 when you start moving again? If so, your thermostat may be toast (most modern thermostats are designed to fail in the open position, which would lead to overcooling... which is by far better than overheating), or you may have a 160 degree thermostat (On my 88, at least, with a 160 degree thermostat, the needle hovered less than a needle's width above 100 under optimal conditions... let's hear it for stock gauge accuracy). Of course, this also means it may have never actually made it to 230, either... fans might work fine, but just be useless with ambient temperatures in your area.

Need more info for any sort of semi-accurate troubleshooting ideas...

 

Mines starts reading high from sitting and according to the manual in overheat situations, if you use the accelerator out of gear you can rev it to cool it down, not prolonged, but it seems odd.
Mine got upto something like 240 this morning and no idiot lights have ever come on warning of engine temp like my Cadillac with a failing water pump. It has a gasket leak and losing coolant. How is your coolant holding?
While it cools off after a run, do your coolent levels go down like mine?
When I am driving I do notice the guage drop quickly, but I'm also a bit skeptical GM's factory guages aren't as accurate as aftermarket race worthy stuff like Stewert Warner
Bill