My 94 honda civic dx keeps overheating. I was going through a lot of coolant (putting in coolant almost as often as putting gas in my car) but I never saw any leaks in my parking spot. I took it in to my mechanic and he said the reason I never saw any coolant leaking was because it was leaking and then burning off on the engine, he ended up having to replace my radiator hose. I noticed that my car was still overheating so I took it in today and my mechanic said that its most likely my head gasket, they found anywhere from 80-150 hydrocarbons in my coolant when there is supposed to be 0... he quoted me $1500-2000 for parts and labour. Does that sound about right? It sounds really expensive to me and i'm wondering if its worth it to go ahead and pay that much or wondering if I should just buy another used car.

 

that is WAY too much. an oem headgasket is 50 dollars, the head bolts are 50-100, and it only took me about 3 hours to do the job on my first and only time.

It is likely that the headgasket is your problem though. if you look at your oil, is it kind of milky and chunky? are you burning oil as well?

 

get a new mechanic thats rediculous. i just did my head gasket for $36 and a few hours of labor. all you gotta do is unbolt exhaust manifold, mark timing belt and cam gear, then loosen tensioner, slide belt off, on the back of the intake manifold is a support bracket remove the 2 bolts, remove distributor and plug wires, remove valve cover, remove head bolts, pull head off with . clean everything up put the new head gasket down and reinstall everything, its a pretty easy job.

if you were close by me i would do it for $200 parts included

 

you also have to drain oil and coolant first or it would be a messy job. I forgot about that. the hardest part is getting the timing belt back on and reaching the tensioner. that turned out to be a nightmare for me, because when my timing belt was changed previously, the lower cover was put back on in a way that the access hole did not line up with the tensioner bolt. but if u have the right tools, plan ahead, and have someone who can help you out as backup, you will be fine. you also need to rent a torque wrench to put the new head bolts on at the correct ft/lb. its free from autozone w/ a 50 dollar deposit.

 

you can buy a torque wrench for less than $20 at walmart

 

The oil won't spill out(*), but you should change it anyway right after the job since there is a good chance it is contaminated. The first thing to do after taking the valve cover off is to stuff rags into the oil return holes at the front corners of the head. Then after taking the head off, block the holes in the block. Anything dropped into those holes will fall down into the oil pan and require removing the pan to retrieve.

(*) There will be a significant amount of oil trapped in the trough under the camshaft in the head. That will spill out the first time you turn the head upside down. There is no way to avoid that, draining the oil pan won't remove that oil.

 

heres my thread i just did mine.

https://www.hondacivicforum.com/foru...s-95-eg-90691/