Hi, I am new around here, and have a very confusing (to me) problem. I drive my 95 Civic LX on a delivery route, and a few weeks ago, began having some overheating problems. After working the route for a few hours, my Civic's temperature gauge would start to go up whenever I would wait at lights or was doing alot of stop-and-go in heavy traffic. The gauge would then drop back to normal (about 1/3 of the way up) when I got back up to speed, but the process would repeat itself and be a little worse each time til it got too close to the red line for me to be comfortable continuing. This only happened on my delivery route. I can still drive it all over town and up and down the highway for 250 miles in a single day with absolutely no symptoms. The gauge stays nice and low... doesn't rise one bit.

In addition to the overheating when I was driving the route, it would also lose coolant slowly but surely. However, it does not lose coolant anywhere else. Since the last time I drove the route, I have gone over 500 miles without losing a drop. This delivery route is extremely rough driving... big city traffic at the worst hours.

So here goes... within the last 2 months, I have had the water pump, radiator, radiator cap, hoses, and thermostat replaced. The coolant has been flushed and refilled. The water pump and thermostat were replaced when my timing belt broke 2 months ago, and the radiator was replaced by a mechanic in an attempt to solve the overheating issue. The coolant fan works well, according to the mechanic. Also, the mechanics were never able to duplicate the problem in their test drives... I actually had to drive the route for a few hours, and then bring the car in for them to witness the temperature gauge spiking.

So I take it back to the shop when the issue isn't resolved... they say that the head gasket is the problem, which surprises them because they were pretty sure the head gasket was ok when they replaced the radiator, but now believe that they were wrong. They do the tests to make sure the problem is the head gasket, and sure enough, it is. They have offered to fix the problem cheaply since I have gotten so much work done with them lately... 700-900 dollars they can do it for after giving me a discount on the labor, which I understand it quite a good deal.

Here's what bothers me... I can't seem to get a straight answer when I ask what would happen if I just used the car under normal conditions and stopped driving the delivery route (which is ok with me). It seems likely to me that this problem has been there since I bought the car at 122,000 miles (at 152,000 now), because on a previous delivery route where the driving was much less intense, the gauge spiking and coolant loss when waiting in traffic would happen occasionally, but to a much lesser extent (minor enough that I eventually forgot about it). I then stopped working delivery jobs for a year, drove the car about 10,000 miles with zero problems (no temperature spiking, zero coolant loss), and then got my current delivery job. I have no other symptoms... my oil looks good, my exhaust fumes are fine, and the engine has full power.

Does it really make sense to replace my head gasket in this situation? Could the overheating/coolant loss problem simply be a result of overusing the car on a delivery route? Or could it be the result of a problem that the mechanics are missing? Hehe, I'll stop here. I just think I would go nuts if I got the work done and still had problems. Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this long post

 

If you don't get it replaced, eventually your gona run into much bigger problems. The temp gauges that come stock aren't exactly the most accurate, so you could still be overheating even if it says you are not. I say get it replaced, but do it yourself if you can.

 

Well if youre not going to soup the car up then id go for an easy fix and see what it does. Royal Purple makes some damn good motor oil, so i would think this stuff mite work well. Im getting it. Id say its worth a shot. Take off the oil cap, if there is a white ring on the top of it then the headgasket is gone........white smoke coming from the vents usually means that as well.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-R...spagenameZWD1V


if this doesnt work then maybe try using some of that bottled "Head gasket" repairer........worste case here is nothing works and u gotta get the headgasket replaced.

 

This part makes me think it would be the radiator fan not coming on, and this is why:

When you drive in heavy slow traffic, the coolant temperature goes up.
When you get it up to a good or steady speed, the coolant temperature stays down.
This shows whenever you keep the car moving at a decent speed, the air is going through your radiator and then cooling the coolant down, but whenever you drive slow or are at a stop, and the airflow stops, then your coolant is not being cooled by the fan like it should be.

A simple test is to start up your car and watch to see if your radiator fan starts when your engine temperature gets high. If the fan doesn't come on, unplug the fan and run a temporary wire directly from your battery to the fan to see if the fan actually works. If your fan works directly from your battery, then you may have a faulty temperature sensor. If the fan doesn't work when it's connected directly to your battery, then replace your fan.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I did alot more research online, and have gained a better understanding of just how important it is to resolve this situation in the near future (probably obvious to you guys, hehe). Unfortunately, I lack the skills/tools to do the job myself. A couple quick questions...

Would the bottled head gasket sealer (K&W block sealer, etc.) be a good idea to try? The head gasket is clearly in the early stages of failure, so I thought I might try it out as pcupo12 suggested. But I have heard that it can mess up your heater core, and possibly do some other bad things. Does this mainly happen to people who fail to follow the instructions on the label? I would hate to mess up other parts of the cooling system, with them all being brand new.

ngoti8tor, last time the car overheated, the fan did come on. When I took it to the mechanic, with the engine still too hot, they checked the temperature in the radiator, the hoses, etc. and it was fine. It was only near the engine that it was getting too hot. At this point, I have to believe that they are dead right about the head gasket

 

Somethin doesn't add up here, especially the part about "It was only near the engine that it was getting too hot."

The heat comes from the engine and the engine is always the hottest thing in anyone's engine bay. If the temperature of the radiator and hoses was fine, but the engine was way overheated, that sounds like your coolant isn't getting around.

Anyways, keep us updated and let us know how it is after your head gasket replacement.

 

I have a similar problem to. My temperature kept on going up and up and the radiator spills over so they check my raidator and my bleed bolt. My bleed bolt was damage and the coolant was spilling over so they replace it. They thought replacing my bleed bolt would fix it but it didnt. So they took a look at my water pump and replace it. That work for awhile but still didnt stop the temperature spikes. Finally they open up my engine and found the head gasket damage and they replace it. Everything was great until today 1 year later. Now i have erratic idling when my engine is warm and when i idling. It bugs the hell out of me.

 

Ok, I finally got the head gasket replaced. Apparently, the previous owner tried to replace the head gasket himself and used a belt sander to refinish the cylinder head, so the head gasket didn't seal properly (as the mechanic put it, "That may work on a Chevy truck, but not a Civic"). The mechanic sent the cylinder head to a machinist who did the job right this time. It runs great now. Also, they had to do a valve job... apparently there was alot of leaking going on (if this doesn't make sense, it's because I don't know what I am talking about here, hehe). Anyway, just under $950 after I got a 3 hour discount on the labor. The lesson from this experience: Listen to the mechanics when I do a buyer's check on a used car. The buyer's check turned out to be a laundry list of everything that would go wrong with this car, including this (they noticed that the cylinder head had been off recently, and that the job looked pretty amateur). I really wanted a Civic, was having trouble finding a decent one, and got impatient

 

No matter where or how you drive the car, if the engine has no problems, it shouldn't overheat. My 95 Civic had the exact same problems with temperature spiking now and then, so I pulled the head off and sure enough, the head gasket was bad. Common problem for Civics of that era, the original head gasket was junk. The one that Honda sells you to replace it is a much better MLS design. That was at about 130k miles and 18 months ago. The cooling issues are now 100% fixed. Hot weather, stop and go traffic, highway speeds, 0 degree temperatures, the temp is always rock steady. So if you're going to keep the car, replace the head gasket as soon as possible. Continuing to drive around is not good for it.

 

Glad to hear you're up and runnin now.