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I have a 2003 Honda Civic that has seen better days lol.After sitting in the driveway through the majority of our nasty winter I went to start it and nothing, wouldn't even crank. I removed the old battery and bought a brand new one, installed it...It then started, going down my road I could hear a noticeable knocking noise that got more frequent the faster I drove....after 5-10min of driving the knocking noise became less loud and almost seemed to disappear. Then my eyes caught the temperature gauge maxed out, I drove straight home although there was no smoke, or any other signs suggesting my engine was overheating. Several hours later I went to start it, it cranked but barely turned over and after just getting out of my driveway the temperature gauge was maxed out...pulled back in my driveway, popped the hood and everything seemed fine but no fans were running, coolant levels seemed fine. Later that night, went to start the car and it would crank, but not turnover.....dear god please help!!!

 
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Did you inspect the fluids in this car before starting it? Oil sitting for a long time in a crankcase through freezing temps, needs time to thaw... there may even have been ice still in the crankcase. Was Sta-Bil added to the fuel to prevent varnishing, if it was to sit an entire winter? Was it serviced with at least an oil change before sitting?

 
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What was the timespan between starting a stone cold engine, and seeing the gauge reading HOT?

 
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I didn't inspect the fluids prior to starting the engine, however there is no way that anything was still frozen in the vehicle, we haven't had freezing temperatures for over a month. I didn't add "Sta-Bil" to the fuel, I actually never heard of that before. The car did receive an oil change a month before winter started.

 
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I would say 10min is when I noticed the temperature gauge reading HOT, but it's not like my eyes were glued on it, so it's possible it reached HOT earlier then 10min.

 
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But after the first time it reached HOT, I let it cool down for 2 hours started it back up and within 30sec it was reading HOT again

 
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this noise was probably your brakes, the pads are making this sound every time they pass the spot on the rotor where they were seized to it

 
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you should start by checking your coolant levels, radiator and overflow

 
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I checked both, and they were actually perfect levels

 
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Sta-Bil is a fuel stabilizer, can get it at any hardware or automotive store. What it does is prevent your fuel from turning to varnish in the tank and lines. Any period more than about a month of sitting, it's a good idea to mix this into a full tank of fuel (the lack of air/moisture prevents surface rust from forming on the inside).

I'd try burping the system. Park the car on a steep incline, nose facing up, or raise the front of the car on jackstands. Take off the rad cap and run the engine with the heater on full hot until you see your rad level drop or you see your overheat condition, whichever comes first... shut down and let cool. Top off and repeat until you can't get any more coolant in, & retest.

 
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30 seconds seems far too quick to be real.
I'd suspect the temp sensor is inaccurate or a wiring problem, anything that would cause a false gauge reading.



Mikey, +1 for thinking of the rusted rotors ("lot rot" is what we call it here).

 
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thanks!....i would return the reps but the forum says i can't yet,

and i agree 30 seconds is way too fast for an engine to over heat....must be a false reading

 
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Yah I agree too, 30 seconds seemed way to quick....and once it was reading HOT after 30sec I kept it running, popped the hood to see if the electrical fan was going and it wasn't, which further made me believe the engine truly wasn't overheating...I'll have to test the thermostat and see if it opens, could be my problem....now just have to figure out why my car will crank, but not turnover...can't do anything until that gets solved

 
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After reading ezone's response, it's indeed true that a car's cooling system will probably not heat that fast (though a motorcycle's can) -- so hold off on dropping the coolant and checking the t-stat for now If a simple electrical test can suss out the cause of a zooming temp gauge, best to do that vs. the much greater work of dropping/replacing/burping coolant, and gasket replacement for the t-stat housing.

If a t-stat is stuck closed, watching for a cooling fan won't help you, since the coolant isn't circulating in the rad yet, only in the engine. Turning the cooling fan on will only make the rad's static coolant cooler, without it actually being circulated in the engine to do its job.

 
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Remove the words "turn over" from your vocabulary.



Ignore the thermostat, it's not the immediate problem.

The misreading coolant temp sensor now seems like the biggest issue.
1) Reading wrong = false gauge HOT reading
2) Reading wrong = incorrect fuel amount injected = no start

A scanner with live engine data and an infrared thermometer (or even your hands) would quickly verify the incorrect ECT reading.

After that's fixed, then the scanner + thermometer + observation + logic would prove thermostat operation as good or bad.

 
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'Crank' and 'turn over' are the same thing to a technician. 'Start' is a better term -- "engine will crank but not start", although I often use the older term 'catch' = 'start'. Best not to use 'turn over' as ezone suggests.

The t-stat isn't open if the coolant hoses to the rad don't get warm.

Your Civic is only a MY older than mine... wonder if my CTS (and KS for that matter) is due for swap. I'd stick with an OEM sensor Pistons, if you find the CTS to be the culprit.

 
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Not to me.

Problem is the ambiguity of the term. It never means the same thing to everyone, therefore it is not to be used. This better not be on a work order.

Yes!


This better not be on a work order either.

It's a lot easier if I'm the one trying to get answers from the used IN PERSON. At least I can interpret for myself instead of having to hear this crap second hand from a ticket writer.



============

Worst one I EVER got was a description of some problem that "happens at idle".
NPF NPF NPF NPF NPF NPF..Sh!tton of time wasted on this...

Finally *I* got to talk to the user.. Older gentleman, probably in his 80s at the time......

"When you're idling down the road at 70 MPH......"

 
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That's fine. They make sense to me, however. You can't expect the world to conform to your technical paradigm, just work with what is. I know what you mean though.


I'm fairly convinced that service writers can be either your high-speed/low-drag amigo in the flat-rate-crushing business... or your low-speed/high-drag lumbago in the flat-rate-flushing business. There seem to be nothing but those extremes with the SWs I've had to work alongside (fortunately the lumbagos don't last very long, esp if they're not techs themselves).

That said... there are some customers I abso-****ing-lutely did not want hanging around my lift while working on their machine... that is a recipe for tons of service overhead. This is much more a moto tech problem than a car tech problem, though.... lot harder to convince mgmt to adopt OSHA authorized-personnel-beyond-this-point when the it's 400 lbs up 3 ft, than 3000 lbs up 7 ft. I have seen an 800-lb '94 Gold Wing 1500 fall off a fully-raised lift though -- due to a 'lot tech' doing things he was expressly told not to do. Yeah he didn't last very long.

 
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could a poor ground cause above symptoms by not letting CTS and spark plugs work? just a thought !

 
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after 30 seconds of running you should be able to just grab your rad hose or even touch the head, you will easily be able to tell if its overheating or not

 
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Since the PCM controls both the dash gauge and ignition coils, and the ECT power and ground wires go directly to the PCM, I'd expect to see other sensor readings skewed along with possibly other things to not working if the PCM has a poor ground.....
The scanner checking I mentioned along with pointed testing of the sensor wiring/coil wiring would probably begin to reveal other issues if it has a bad ground.


I'm going for proving the simple stuff first. The bad temp sensor can cause both of the complaints.

OP could squirt some carb&throttle cleaner into the throttle body while someone else cranks it and see if it tries to fire off, that would prove there is no issue with the coils and prove it's starving for fuel.

HTH

 
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Do ECTs go higher or lower resistance, as temp goes up? IIRC they decrease as temps go up...

So if there was a short in the loom to the PCM, or in the sensor, it'd show much higher temps than actual. Since it takes 30 secs for the gauge to read high rather than immediately, my guess is the sensor, not the wiring. Multimeter and some probes should confirm in only a few mins.

 
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EDIT: Called it the wrong thing.
EDIT2: I called it an NTC resistor. Maybe I was right.

 
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EDIT: *not* a thermistor... so goes down with greater temps? Wow... I always thought temp sensors were thermistors... but again this is from the moto side. Suppose an NCT would heat up less in service, in an already hot location, makes sense. Still think moto tech is leading-edge?

At any rate... much more likely since the component was exposed to repeated heat cycles (heat and vibration being the enemy of all electrical components), that the sensor is the culprit, not the loom.

 
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Uh, it's the other way around.

Resistance drops as temp rises.

 
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Edited while you were posting.

PTC thermistors (what I was used to working with), increase resistance with temp, often just opening all together. NTCs drop with temp.

 
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From the service info:



The ECT sensor is a temperature dependent resistor (thermistor). The resistance of the thermistor decreases as the engine coolant temperature increases.


EDIT: Edited previous post. I'm an idiot.
EDIT 2: Maybe I had it right the first time.

 
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Yup.

 
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Now I'm confused too. Again. Some more.

 
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Who's on first?