Under the Lemon Law (assuming your state has one) you can make them buy the car back and give you either your money back or another car. Hold your ground and stick it to the dealer. If it gives you this much trouble now, you dont want to own it when the warranty runs out.

 

Ah yes, the lemon law. In California the law is a little vague, but what it boils down to is, 30 dayss in the shop or, 2 attempts to fix life threatening flaws or 4 attempts to fix flaws that hinder the operation of the car within 18 months or 18K miles.

California has no cooling off period, so I am stuck with it until it can be declared a Lemon. I have spoken to my attorney about it and at this point all I can do is keep imaculate records. Dates, names etc...

I went to the dealer yesterday and spoke to the service advisor, next is the radiator, then they are going to pull the head. Looks like whatever they do it won't be ready by Fri, which means that they will have had it for 14 days. Half way there for the lemon law.

 

Zoso.... I've been watching your post here for a few days now. I'm almost certain you have a bad head gasket seal / warped engine block or head. If the water pump is pumping, the thermostat is opening up at the correct temperature, and the radiator is only half clogged up, then the damn thing should at least be so so cool. I think what you really need to be concerned about is what damage possibly occurred when it overheated. If your wife cooked the sh*t out of it, then I would be worried, but if it only got a little hot I wouldn't sweat it too much. I know it bothers you to have a bunch of monkey's take it apart and put it back together, but if you think about it... it just got put together by a bunch of monkey’s anyway.

Here's what I would do.... after they get it fixed pay very close attention for engine vibrations. If you feel the engine runs rough in any way, immediately start working the issue with Honda. This would indicate to me that parts are warped in the engine from the overheating. I would write a letter outlining everything that happened requesting a complete new engine be installed. I would send a copy your dealer and Honda America. Honestly.... when an engine over heats usually all that gets damaged is the head flatness and gasket. They will address this when they take her apart, so keep your spirits up. I think most of us bought a Honda to have excellent quality…. you will still realize this.

 

The wifey only drove the car once (from dealer to home) otherwise I was driving or with her. The temp never maxed out, we always turned the AC off, pumped the heater and dropped the windows and it cooled down pretty quickly then.

The dealer is going to pull the head, check the gasket, check for warpage etc.. this week. We have a 48 month lease, 12 months at the end will be out of warranty, but if it is related to the initial problem you better believe they will be taking care of it at no charge. So worst case is we give it back after the warranty.

I'm not fuming about this, it is just frustrating. First my wife gets rear ended hard and is injured, so then we have to deal with doctors, physical therapy, getting prescriptions, dealing with health insurance, dealing with car insurance, getting car estimated and totalled, waiting on a check etc. Basically a ton of hassles. The light at the end of the tunnel is that she gets a new car (old car was a 97 Civic ex). Now it is just more hassles because the new car is having issues. I'm sure you guys/gals can feel my pain here. I'm just ready for life to get back to normal.

 

I hear ya! read this!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...silent_doctors

 

The link above pretty much says that 1 in 3 doctors withold info from patients to save money/ make a bigger salary.

I hear that. It's like pulling teeth at our doctor. The day of the accident the doctor did some x-rays, gave her some pain medication and said see ya later, feel free to go back to work. She was dying with pain, couldn't drive to work etc, family friends/lawyers said call up docotr, demand a can't work form, demand refferal for PT and rest for a week. Well even after demanding the PT refferal, they held off for 2 weeks. My brother works in PT and said that was garbage, go see the PT right away, they know how to deal with it even it she was hurting still, and they did of course. Again, you can see why I'm frustrated, this ordeal just won't end. Of course my wife still isn't 100% and will probably have to be careful with her neck for life, is a little skittish while driving because she is afraid of getting creamed again.

 

UPDATE Finally got the car back. turns out it was a bad casting on the head. The water jacket (a hole that passes coolant from head to block) was not cast all the way through. It was close, tech said he could have tapped it with a screwdriver and broken through, but it was enough to stop coolant and hence start overheating.

So car is running great, only 400 miles on it, so haven't even stoped on the gas yet.

 

so I take it there was no damage done to the car?

 

We never let it boil over or anything, so I am hoping that nothing warped. I will be super attentive to any problems. I'm not about to be stuck with a unreliable car because someone in QC missed a part.

 

Glad they found out what it was. I've been a machinist for 30 years and worked on all sorts of different castings. Sometimes a pour doesn't flow through the mold exactly as planned. This is the sort of thing that can slip thru even a solid inspection program. I wouldn't expect any other problems related to this, since the casting for the block wouldn't affect any other systems on the car. Anything else that would be affected by that would have shown up already.