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I have a 2005 Honda Civic SI, 177 000 kms on it. What causes the head gasket to blow is my question. I have owned sevaral vehicles before and this being the newest but the first to blow the head gasket. I have owned it since brand new, never had a problem before with it. 1 week ago I noticed the temp go up on it while in town, then it went down as i started driving. Got back into town and it went up again. I parked it for a while, drove home and it didn't heat up, didn't the next 2 days either. Then on the 3rd day, same thing happened. Went up, then back down again. 4th day, same thing. So I decided to change thermostat, rad cap and flush the system. After that, it would just heat up and not go down at all. So into the shop it went and they tell me it is the head gasket. What the hell causes this ? Pretty dissapointed, I thought Honda was supposed to be good. They are going to replace the timing belt, water pump, and spark plugs while its in there.

 
Rep Power: 812

sometimes they just go. there are too many factors to say a single thing caused it. driving the car hard before it warms up, driving in extreme temperatures, etc. when its apart, be sure they check the head for warpage and do a compression check. no sense in just throwing on a new gasket because the same thing will happen again. almost always you need to mill the head to have a smooth mating surface before installing a new gasket. when we did mine, i noticed the stock head does not have a very nice machined surface that comes in contact with the gasket. lots of bumps and grooves. but after the machine shop was done with it, the surface was perfectly smooth and shiny. maybe it is a small defect with the manufacturing process. because they were kinda surprised why it was so rough at the bottom.