Rep Power: 0

So I noticed that my temp guage was almost to the red mark when I was at a fast food line, so I pulled off and turned my car off and let it cool off for five minutes, I checked the oil and the coolant res both where good so I restarted my car and drove off two blocks later it was back up again so I pulled off again. I opened the hood while the car was still on and noticed the fan wasn't on. I restarted the car it turned on. I drove to the other side of the parking lot and it went back up so I stoped and looked again and was off again.. wtf the only thing that I can think of is its a wireing or thermostat problem. What do you guys think?

Short version:
Fan starts when car starts but then turns off shortly after and car overheats.

 
Rep Power: 0

there is a relay under the hood and it could be goin bad but u can run a a jumper wire where the relay is and ur fan will stay on while the car is runnin cause i did it to my buddys civic

 
Rep Power: 0

Update. I just got the car home, on the way it was at about 1\3 of the way up. When I came to a stop sign it went up to the white line right under the red. I got up to 55mph and it started to cool off to the half way point. When I got home I opened my hood and neither of my fans still arnt on.

 
Rep Power: 0

could be water pump too or even a temp sensor

 
Rep Power: 0

I can't find a good discription of where the relay switch is for the fans anywhere

 
Rep Power: 0

K so I was mistaken, the fans do work when its actually overheating... but they don't bring the temperture down. And it only over heats when I'm ideling. I did clean my throttle body and iacv the other day, could that have anything to do with it?

 
Rep Power: 0

i really dont think the throttle body or iacv would have anything to do with overheating try the thermostat

 
Rep Power: 0

Ugh I have such bad luck.. somehow looking at the wireing that goes to my radiator fan I must have bumped something else loose cause now my head lights won't turn on... like the circles come on when I start my car and I can turn my ambers on by twisting my headlight *** thing to the running lights but when I turn it to headlights they don't come on but my brights work fine... for some reason I'm having a lot of electrical issues with this car =\

At least it was cheap

Oh yeah I'm gonna get a new thermostat today and see if that fixes the over heating

 
Rep Power: 0

So I got a new thermostat but I didn't put it in yet cause yesterday it didn't get hotter than half way... I figured id wait for today( its over 90 degrees out so I figured if its gonna overheat it would today) I drove into town and it stayed at its norm range about 1/3 of the way up, it did fine at the stoplights so I pulled into a paringlot and let it idle. It took more than ten minutes for it to get close to the top and barley touched the top white line before the red then the fan kicked in and it stayed there. I felt both if the rad hoses and they where both hot and running, wouldn't that mean that the thermostat is opening and closing fine? Or do you still think that is the fix?

 
Rep Power: 0

does it use water

 
Rep Power: 812

sometimes a thermostat can open part way enough to heat up the lower hose but not enough to cool the car down. be sure to only use a honda thermostat. i bet its that.

 
Rep Power: 0

So it turns out the culprit was a bad thermostat gasket... when I got the thermo out I noticed right away that the gasket around it looked decrepid and worn out, I tried to fit it on the new thermostat and it just wouldn't fit right, so I grabbed a new gasket and returned the thermostat and put it back together. She works great now, never going above half way.

 
Rep Power: 812

cool glad you got it fixed