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I have had this problem for about 2 months now, but as its getting hotter out its time to fix it.

2004 Civic EX

When the car is dead cold and i start it in the morning, after about 2 minutes of driving, the car is a full opperating temperature. I have a SLIGHT leak of coolant ever once in a while. (past 4 days about 4 dime size droppings)

Also, noticed when looking under the hood yesterday that my overflow level is right at the top, almost at the cover.

Im thinking its thermostat related?

Any ideas?

 
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Bringing this back, the problem still hasnt been resolved....

The problem is really weird, and have talked to lots of mechanic friends and even had the coolant system pressure tested at the Honda dealership, and it failed.

Again, the problem im having is that a car that is dead cold heats up to opperating temp really fast. Also on really hot days it will spew some coolant out of the overflow area. the coolant doesnt seem to drain down out of the overflow after the car is cooled down. What can cause this?

-The car does not and has NEVER over heated
-No coolant/oil mixing
-No milkyness on the dipstick
-No moisture out of the tail pipe
-runs well, not rough etc
-not loosing coolant
basically no signs at all of a bad headgasket

-burped the system many times
-new rad cap
-did a compression test yesterday and got
191psi
211psi
208psi
205psi
seems a little high, but im thinking because of carbon build up.

also the plugs look normal for a 90K mile motor.

im attaching a picture where it looks like i have some carbon deposit on the vc. Does it look like a header leak??

Any help would be appreciated.

 
Rep Power: 0

Thats a 04!? Man, you have got to clean the engine down, then you can see what the hell is leaking and what's just dirt. Have you fixed the leak yet? You probably have a cracked hose. Replace the hose or fix the leak, then flush the system not just by removing the drain on the rad. but also there is a coolant drain plug near the oil filter to drain the block. You should also replace the thermo because they're so cheap and easy. Then refill and see what happens.

 
Rep Power: 209

I can think of two reasons for the level of coolant to be high in the reservoir. The first is a leaking head gasket allowing combustion gas into the cooling system and displacing the coolant which is then forced out the overflow. The other possiblity is a bad radiator cap or leak in the cooling system. The system is designed so that when the coolant expands it flows into the reservoir and when the engine cools down it draws it back into the radiator. To pull the fluid back from the overflow container there must be a vacuum created. If there is any leak in the system, including the hose going to the reservoir, it will not pull the coolant back.
If it is a head gasket, the continual addition of combustion gas in the cooling system should cause the coolant reservoir to overflow. If it is a leak in the cooling system then I would expect the level to reach a maximum level in the overflow reservoir and not go any higher.
Since you said you "had the coolant system pressure tested at the Honda dealership, and it failed" and you feel it is not the head gasket, I would pressure test the system again and try to find the leak.

 
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I've been having a similar problem and was just about to post a new thread about it. Mine seems a little more serious than urs, but I'll post it and see if anyone has ideas on this.

A few thousand miles back, I was driving, and my car randomly started overheating. I checked fans, they were working. Then I checked to see if it was low on coolant and it was boiling over into the reserve tank. Anyways, I noticed that when it started to overheat, my heat inside my car would blow to just regular air. I figured it was the thermostat and replaced it and flushed the radiator, burped it and the next day, it heated up again.

I noticed that I can make it go back down to normal operating temperature if I just downshift and make my RPMs higher which made me think it might be a bad H2O pump. It's still not getting heat/cold ac when it does heat up. To top it all off, just the other day at start up, it was sounding like it's misfiring and is really rough when I first turn my car on, and continues to sputter slightly when I'm stopped.

The car gets to normal operating temperature within a half-mile to a mile of driving it so something is up. Car has just over 80k on it so I didn't think a head gasket, timing belt, or H2O pump would go out that soon. Also I went to autozone to have the codes ran and the only thing that came up was a vtec code which doesn't even seem related. I've tried to be as detailed as possible with this. I just wanted some opinions before I start dumping major $$ into it..

 
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Yours sounds like a head gasket for a couple reasons. Yours overheated, and the boiling of coolant. Mileage doesnt mean much, it depends on how a car is maintained and driven among other things needs to be taken into account when a gasket fails. I have friend who has a 8th gen si and his gasket failed at 30K.

I kinda expected mine to be a head gasket because i drive VERY spiritedly. i have no other symptoms other than the coolant spilling out and the smell of exhaust in the coolant.

The good thing is they arent hard to replace, just a lot of crap that needs to be removed, and need to make sure you dont screw up the timing.

Good luck man.

 
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good time to do a valve adjustment while you're in there^^^^

 
Rep Power: 811

thats what my compression readings were like before the gasket blew and started burning small amounts of coolant. altho, a stuck thermostat would also cause quick warmup time. that may have eventually caused the problem you have now.

 
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I've done a head gasket on a motor I didn't care about like a year ago. The motor had tons of other issues, but it ran after I did it. It was an older d-series tho. How different is this motor and what is shop labor normally for them. I'm expecting like 6-700?

 
Rep Power: 811

sounds about right. the older and new d-series are pretty similar with the same amount of work involved.

 
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It seems to be a slightly blown/ripped gasket. It still doesnt overheat, but im slowly loosing coolant (i think im burining it).

I called the dealership to see what it would cost to have it done since i have no time.

To do the timing belt, water pump, valve adjust, new plugs, head gasket, re surface the head, i was quoted $1500 for the whole job.

 
Rep Power: 313

1500 isn't too bad I guess for all that work. Do it yourself, save the cash. It really isn't that hard.

 
Rep Power: 0

I know its not. I did the tb, water pump and valves on my 97 cr-v and 98 civic. I have lots going on now. Just bought a house, im restoring the camaro in my sig (bodywork and paint stage) and lots of other stuff.

 
Rep Power: 811

try to find someplace cheaper. like around 500-800 range. thats way too expensive what you were quoted. alot of dealer rates went up to $100 an hour for some strange reason.