First of all, my car is pure evil. I have a 94 Civic Coupe DX (automatic) that loves to spend my money. Lately, it has been overheating. At first, it would overheat on those hot sunny South Carolina days when I wanted to use my AC or when I was stuck in traffic. When I would turn the heat on or accelerate, the temp would go down. My fan was apparently just stuck for awhile. I got that "fixed" until a few months later it started up again. At this point, I could see that my fan was indeed working so I took it into the shop again. I should mention that every time I take it in to the shop, they cannot replicate the problem. Have I mentioned my car is evil? So this time, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with it even though the temp was up to maybe 75% when I drove it in. Anyway, they replaced the thermostat for the hell of it. Well, that didn't fix the problem. Now, it is overheating without regard to rhyme or reason. It is when I have been driving around for maybe 15 minutes, but accelerating doesn't help and neither does turning on the heat. It hit the red line on my way home today, but somehow went down just enough to avoid total meltdown in the middle of the highway. Any ideas? Also, this may be completely unrelated, but my car has started to do some weird hesitating thing when I start it. I would appreciate any help as so far the mechanics have been none. Please keep in mind, I only have a relatively basic understanding of cars and probably wouldn't be able to actually fix much myself.

Thanks!!!

 

Have you checked the compression? Possibly a blown headgasket?

 

Hmm. Is there any smoke comming out of your exhaust? You could try to flush your coolant system, refill it, and bleed it. You might just have a nasty air pocket in there somewhere. It kind of sounds like a headgasket problem, but if there's no smoke. I don't know.

 

Thats not what I wanted to hear, but it is what I expected. I blew the head gasket when I first got the car too. It was sort of a similar situation in that no mechanic (and at the time, I took it to 3 different ones) knew what was wrong with it until it was blown. I don't think I worded that right. Anyway, I know how much it cost me the first time, but how much should it cost to fix it?

 

Oh and no, there is no smoke.

 

I'd go down to like an Autozone and have a compression test done. You can change your headgasket yourself. It's not too difficult, you just need a helms manual, time, patience, and get the bolts torqued correctly.

 

Thanks for all your help. I ended up taking it to the shop this morning when it started to overheat on my way to work. I had checked everything I could think of to indicate a head gasket problem, but everything seemed normal. They ended up just replacing the already at replaced thermostat. I hope that is really the problem. If not I may be back for more help. Thanks!

 

water pump?

ETA: Oops! Guess I revived a pretty old one.

 

My car was doing the same thing, I changed everything from the pump to the radiator and still the same problem , Finally I manged to change the Temp Sensor that controls the fan located by the main water house leading in to the engine (next to the air filter cabin) Prob solved no more weird warming up