Hello,

I just purchased a 03 Civic reccently. Before I bought it from the person, I took it to have it inspected by Firestone. Everything was fine but a days after I bought it the check engine light came on so I took it to Firestone again and had them look at it. They pulled the code and told me the Coolant Sensor was bad and I ended up getting the Coolant Sensor, Thermostat and Gasket, and Radiator flushed last Saturday, 15th.However, I don't think the problem is fixed because it still takes more than 20 minutes for the coolant level to go up after they replaced my car with new Coolant Sensor and Thermostat, AND the Check Engine Light came on again this morning. I do not know much about cars (only been driving to work for about two months, my previous car was wrecked so that's why I had to get another one) and this is very frustrating. I'll take it back to Firestone to have them look at it again but hope someone on this forum can provide some possible explanations.

Timeline:

9/9/07: Brought car
9/10/07: Check Engine Light ON
9/12/07: Took it to Firestone, said Coolant Sensor is bad
9/14/07: Driving to work in the morning, stopped at a traffic light and the engine turned itself OFF. I turned restarted the car and the Check Engine Light was OFF.. not ON..
9/15/07: Took it to Firestone and got new Coolant Sensor andThermostat/Gasket and Radiator flushed
9/17/07: Check Engine Light ON again

Thanks

 

You're probably getting the check engine light and coolant sensor code
because the engine is so slow to warm up. This does not mean that
the sensor is bad. The computer expects to read the temperature
of the engine as fully warmed up after it has been running for a
certain time. When it doesn't get that expected reading, it flags
a possible bad sensor.



About the only thing that can cause the engine to warm up too slow or not at all is the thermostat.