Hey all,

My wife's been driving my '07 Civic LX for the last couple of weeks, and last Friday as she was coming home from work she called to tell me the car was overheated. Luckily she was almost home. Apparently the radiator was empty. I'm not sure why, I suppose it could be a small leak, but also the cap of the reserve tank was loose - I'm almost thinking the Florida summer evaporated the water out of the system... Anyone think that's possible, or should I just assume the radiator is leaking?

I pulled the dipstick to check the oil level, and the heat of the engine actually melted the bottom 70% of the plastic dipstick off!

With some added water the car ended up starting and running fine.
The next morning I went to the dealer to get a replacement dipstick, and on the way out the engine light came on and the car started running a little rough. The idle stumbles around and it seems like the engine is missing when driven.
I'm going to need to take it and have it checked out at the dealer but wondering if someone more mechanically-inclined can see an obvious problem resulting from the overheating...

 

Pull the CEL codes from the engine and it will tell you what the problem is most likely, you can get it done at autozone for no charge.

 

Any smoke coming out the tailpipe? White "smoke" that smells like antifreeze means that the overheating has damaged the head gasket or even cracked the engine.

 

Seems to be a common problem. My sister in law had a cracked engine block on her 06 Civic EX with 78k. Her local dealer did a good-will repair. Honda has issued TSB No. 08-044 addressing this issue. Below is a link where some people are complaining of this issue.






http://www.carcomplaints.com/Honda/C...ne_block.shtml

 

Well I took it to Autozone for the error codes and got these:
P0300
P0301
P0302
P0303
P0304
So all the cylinders are misfiring...
But I think it's the problem discussed in TSB A08-044: Engine Overheats or Leaks Coolant

Thank heaven I'm still under warranty. I think (hope) I'll be covered...
Thanks for the help, guys! You rock!

 

Yesssssssssss! It was a leaking engine block, and the warranty covered it! Brand new engine block installed, plus they replaced a bad shock and I even got a new battery and front-end alignment out of it!