Ehh, in the ballpark. No one can give a final quote until the job is half done, that is the cylinder head removed and it and the engine block inspected.
With all due respect, I already told you that head gaskets are NOT reused
you will not get any quotes to remove and reinstall a cylinder head and reuse the old head gasket
Just curious because I have not seen it asked, when it overheats, are your radiator fans running? They must be running when the shop idles the car for an hour but are they running when it actually overheats. Also , how are you adding coolant th an overheated engine? You don’t mention waiting for it to cool.
@“oldtimer 11” I had all the electrical parts of the cooling system checked a while back. I remember once it overheated on me and I went to out to check the fan and it was off so idk… my last mechanic had an answer for why this was but I forget now. I may mentioned it again to my new mechanic, but I’ve seen the fans working other times though. And I let the engine cool off a bit 5-10min before I put in coolant.
@asemaster Also wondering what caused the head gasket to crack in the first place. Guessing it could have been anything in the cooling system with the previous owner.
Sometimes a head gasket just plain wears out, even if the vehicle was well maintained
Some engines are more prone to this than others
In my opinion, this is due to the engine design . . . but only in those cases where the head gasket needs replacing, in spite of good maintenance
If you abuse your vehicle and then need a head gasket, don’t blame it on the design
I’m not assigning blame . . . I’m just stating opinions
In fact, I don’t even have any opinions as to whether you or the previous owner did or did not take good care of the car
We don’t even know for sure that the head gasket has failed. Maybe it’s a hairline crack in the head, maybe a bolt has weakened, maybe the head is slightly warped. Whatever the case is, pondering it on the interweb isn’t going to get you any closer to the answer. It’s time to remove and inspect.
I have a customer with a similar year Civic. Coming back from a long weekend got stuck in traffic and car started to overheat at slow speeds. Repaired the cooling fans, and I just knew the car had a head gasket problem as a result but I couldn’t prove it. Every time the car came in for service the coolant was low and I could smell coolant on start up. Finally 2 years later the gasket failed enough to be obvious.
Your failure could have been caused by a sticky thermostat or broken fan motor years ago.
The head gasket failure on the 4 cylinder civics is simply due to the wear and tear of that many cycles of heating and cooling. It is not driver error, abuse, or lack of maintenance. I’ll estimate that 75% of civics with 150k or more miles experience head gasket problems.
Yeah I’ve talked to other mechanics who claim that Honda made some bad design and material choices with the early 00s head-gaskets idk how true that is. Does seem like when you put into google overheating Honda 2003 the first results are usually straight to the gaskets. Isn’t it layered or something odd like that?
@asemaster I agree it is time for inspection once and for all. If it’s a hairline in the cylinder head how is something like that even fixed? or is it totaled at that point? or far worse event he engine block?
Cracks in cylinder heads can be repaired. But all of these questions are non-issues at this point since we don’t have the engine apart to inspect yet.
I would love to have heard the explanation of why your cooling fans wouldn’t be on while the car was overheating. Any Pros on hear that would like to enlighten me?
The only thing I can think of is that if it was low on coolant and the sensor for the fans was not submerged in coolant, it may not have turned the fans on. I really don’t know where the sensor is though and if that’s possible. I had head gaskets replaced on my diesel at least once and I’m not sure I’d ever do that again. By the time the shop got done with the magna fluxing the heads for cracks, checking for warps, valves, new expensive bolts, etc. I was half way to a new engine and should have just gone with the new engine.
The head gasket job on the 4 cylinder civic is very routine and rarely finds block cracks or need for a new head. There is a small charge to send the head to a machine shop for a check, resurfacing, a prep to reinstall. $1,100 is typical, more in some bigger cities, for the whole job.
I would love to have heard the explanation of why your cooling fans wouldn’t be on while the car was overheating. Any Pros on hear that would like to enlighten me?
@“oldtimer 11”
On many Hondas there is a simple 2-wire switch that closes when the engine reaches a certain temperature and opens when the temp goes down. This switch cycles the fan on and off. This switch is located in the rear water outlet of the engine or in the radiator. If the switch is not immersed in coolant it may never get warm enough to turn the fans on.
On older Hondas the cooling fan switch was located in the radiator at the inlet from the engine, thermostat side. On those cars a stuck closed thermostat=no coolant flow to switch=no fan operation. I’ve seen many a time where time and money were spent trying to fix a no fan problem when the cause was a thermostat sticking.
Thank you sincerely, Bing and assmaster for the explanation.
Thank you sincerely, Bing and assmaster for the explanation.
Well you hit that one right on the mark. Ha!
That sounds like one of those exercise machines that’s supposed to slim down your butt
I am laughing so hard at my mistake that I am having trouble typing my apology. It was completely unintentional…but funny.
Sorry to say, first few times I saw asemaster, I misread it the same way., thinking what a strange name.