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I just purchased a 111k 2001 lx 4 door five speed mostly because my 1997 260k civic had a rusted out body, bad tranny, and a bad head gasket. Before I bought the new (2001) civic I had two local garages give it a good once over. The body, tranny, tires, and suspension appear to be good.

One of the shops that I took it to found a leak in the cam plug and valve cover gasket. Additionally the car needed a rear tail light and a windshield repair because it has a ding. The dealer offered to fix the gaskets but said I would have to fix the rear tail light and windshield.

Today I was driving the car and the gauges(tac,speedo, and gas) just quit working all of a sudden. They stayed off for a bit then just miraculously came back on. I looked for the cause of the gauge malfunction and noticed that I had some corrosion on positive battery terminal. I cleaned it off and am hoping that I didn't buy a car with a wiring problem. I did some research and found that several other people have had gauge problems with these cars.

Have any other users had gauge problems with their civics?

While under the hood I noticed that the overflow bottle on the car was completely empty. I filled it up to the correct mark on the bottle but I was at a bit of a loss as to why it didn't have any fluid in it. Then I noticed that the plastic coolant fan on the passenger side was broken off. I'm starting to wonder if a previous owner didn't notice that the fan was broken and drove the car around overheating enough to burn some of the coolant out of the radiator. This is purely hypothetical because I have driven the car for 250 miles and the heat gauge hasn't gone over half way up. The bottom return hose does get hot so i'm pretty sure that the thermostat does work on the car.

I have a junk yard pretty close to me and they should have a civic with a good passenger side fan. How hard is this fan to replace? What models should interchange.

I paid 3300 dollars with a 3 month engine and tranny warranty for this car. I really need to get a few years out of it in order to get my money back. How badly did I get had?

The headlights on the car are slightly foggy. How much should it cost to have the outside re-surfaced.

 
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after some looking I am almost positive that the fan that is broken is not to cool the engine. Instead I think that it is there to cool off the ac compressor. I'm still at a loss for how it got broken.

 
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Intermittent gauge problems: could be a connection problem behind the glove box. That's where the engine wiring harness and under-dash wiring harness connects to the ECU. I have some (suspected) electrical gremlins that cause intermittent problems with my ignition coil packs, or so I assume, but all that is self-inflicted. The procedure to access the ECU connections is the same as accessing your cabin filters. It just involves pulling the stoppers for the glove box.

Coolant problems: I'd keep an eye on it. Possibly a non-issue, but I'd still monitor it until you know for a fact it's a non issue. If you're really worried about it, bleed your coolant system and make sure the overflow is between the high and low marks.

Fan: If I'm not mistaken, that fan is actually your radiator fan. The A/C fan is 4-bladed, rad fan is 5 bladed. Fortunately enough, since (I'm assuming) you have a/c, both (radiator and a/c) fans kick on when the fan switch shuts, providing some cooling to the radiator, apparently enough to keep your temp gauge happy. The only time I would ever foresee any visual temperature fluctuations (increase) would be stop and go traffic on a hot day. Nevertheless, I believe (it's been about a year or so since I've pulled my fans) it's just about the same procedure to remove either fan: 2 bolts secure the top of the fan while 2 pegs at the bottom hold it in place. Not necessarily difficult, just a pain in the *** because of the tight-ish space you have to work with. A socket set with a a 3 or 6-inch extension should do you fine. Top bolts are most likely 10mm. Any non-Si 01-05 civic fan should fit.

Headlights: Assuming the fogging is on the exterior of the lights, it's an easy DIY job, just takes some time, elbow grease, and a few materials. There's a DIY guide lurking about these forums, but here's the procedure in a nutshell:
1) Get a small bucket of water, add a small bit of dish soap to it. Have 800,1000, and 1500 grit (wet/dry) sandpaper handy.
2) Tape off bumper/fender/hood with masking tape so you don't accidentally sand your clearcoat. Unless you want to. Your choice.
3) Start with 800 grit: soak the sandpaper in the slightly soapy water for a bit. In an up-down motion, sand your headlights. Periodically soak/replace sandpaper as you deem necessary.
4) Rinse off sanding dust and repeat step 2 with 1000 grit, but go side-side instead of up-down
5) Rinse off sanding dust again and repeat step 3 with 1500 grit with the up-down motion.
6) If you so desire, keep going with higher grit sandpaper.
7) Seal your headlights with something that protects from UV rays. This procedure, although it clears up your headlights, removes any factory UV protection from the headlights. In the past, I've just followed up with a clay bar treatment to remove any fine particulate followed up by some Mother's/Meguiar's plastic polish and a few good coats of UV protecting wax, ensuring I re-wax every month or so to keep it from yellowing/fogging up again. I've read that some people sprayed some uv-protecting clear coat on it or paid a body shop to do the same. Again, your choice. Rain-X or Turtle Wax may have something that seals headlights, too. They have headlight restoration kits for like.. $20 or so at Autozone, but I don't know how well they work.

 
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you are right good sir! The fan does have five blades which would make it the radiator cooler fan.