First Car

Hey Guyz, bought a used honda civic 2003 coupe, it has heat issues, it only worked once not any more, the temperature gauge need is always right below the center and i check the heat motor fuse which is also good?
im a student any ideas whats the problem and how much is it going to cost?
Thanks

mikey1

possibly a blown head gasket, but before we jump to that conclusion.....

check the coolant level in both the rad and the overflow bottle, is either of them low?.....if so top up using only OEM honda coolant

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

bleed/burp/fill your radiator first. It'll cost you.. $20 at most?

But riceboy, I don't know what I'm doing. Is it hard? How do I do it?

Have no fear, it's quite easy. You'll need 2 things: a bottle of new coolant and a funnel.

If you can, park so your car's on an incline. Next, pop off the radiator cap. Go ahead and start your car with your heater on full blast. Now, hop back out of your car and look at the radiator. Is level low? Top it off. Keep your engine running for a good 10-15 minutes, refilling as necessary. You can really stop if you don't see any more bubbles and radiator level maintains where it's at. After that, go ahead and cap the radiator and turn your car off. Now you're done. Only thing left to do is to let it cool off, then drive around, and see if you still have heating issues.

dipmo13

I've had a similar problem in mine (If I'm understanding your problem right). What I had to do to fix mine was flush the coolant using a radiator flush kit ($5-10 at most auto part stores), once it was flushed I went ahead a replaced my thermostat which was stuck open and refilled the coolant. The old thermostat was allowing too much coolant to rush to the engine making it impossible to heat up (the engine itself and the interior.) You can buy a new thermostat for less than $10 online.

It's not too difficult to do yourself if you feel comfortable doing the job. It's about $20 to do yourself. Otherwise a mechanic will charge anywhere from $50-120-ish for the job.

If you're not too repair savvy, look around for good quotes and second opinions from mechanics.

If you feel confident in doing the job yourself here's a link to a 7th Gen Civic thermostat replacement tutorial:
Hope this helps!

ezone

Maybe you mean the fan doesn't work?


Fan motor must have power and ground to run.
If ground is missing, it's probably a bad power transistor.....and that might be caused by restricted airflow (clogged cabin filters) or a bad fan motor (excessive amp draw). Or the power transistor is just bad. It happens.

If the fan motor is worn out, maybe a kick to the bottom of the dash (passengers side) can make it run again for a brief while.