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Car Problems - Random Overheating and acceleration issues.


GoBengals

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Car: 2004 Honda Accord

Miles: 190,000

Single Owner, Not retarded.

Never a single issue prior to May 6th.

 

Ok, so a few weeks ago, roughly May 6th. I took my kids to the sports card shop, its a 20 mile drive about 30-35 minutes. No problems at all.

 

We were inside about 40 minutes, come out to the car, everyone opened their boxes of cards, it was about 88 degrees sunny as hell, was hot. so sat in car probably 30 minutes with AC blasting. Son got a great card, (1/1 1 of a kind Iverson, Shaq, Kobe, Mutumbo, with piece of game worn tag from jersey in card) so we went back in to get him a case, card probably worth $600. so car got turned off for 5-10 minutes, then back to car, sat for 5-10 more minutes with car on and AC blasting again.

 

Finally go to leave once we decided what we were doing next. car wasnt accelerating super well, drove to end of parking lot, sat at light twice as assholes blocked intersection, finally got chance to go, acceleration was hsit, looked down card temp gauge was on full HOT. So i flipped on the heat full blast, temp gauge dropped, pulled back into the parking lot. 

 

Parked, popped hood, let everything cool down with car off, etc. The coolant tank i finally noticed was almost empty, was below the minimum fill line. So i grabbed some coolant at the gas station, topped it off to the full line. started car, it pumped a TINY TINY bit, into the radiator, so the tank went down maybe a half inch.. pretty minimal amount. but i thought hmm maybe somehow that was it.. turned AC on.. sat.. nothing heating up.. drove around parking lot, no issues, so i decided to drive home. no issues at all.

 

Fast forward to Monday, the 23rd, driving home from work, traffic sucks, AC on, its like 77 out, nothing crazy.. but sun beating down.. im getting poor acceleration, look down and BOOM temp gauge almost all the way to hot.. so i roll down windows and kick on the heat full blast.. temp drops. get home, pop hood, cant see anything wrong thats obvious, coolant tank about same level, im not leaking oil or any other fluid anywhere. 

 

Since then.. no issues. 

 

Completely random, only POSSIBLE factors are hot-ish day, running AC full blast, and sitting stop and go in traffic or sitting in traffic.

 

Any thoughts? tests? ideas?

 

 

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thermostat is the low-hanging fruit here, and it's really cheap so just replace it yourself.  Watch the videos on youtube and decide if you want to give it a try.  Just make sure you notice which way it's oriented when you remove the old one.  Putting in a thermostat backwards is a classic newb mistake that will send you down the rabbit hole.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm late to the party, but aside from the thermostat, I'd check the fan clutch or controller depending on cooling system design.  Clutch/controller tells the fan when to be fully engaged and when it can freewheel some.  The fan should do the heavy lifting in the scenario you described, i.e. clutch/controller should be fully engaged at low RPM, hot, car sitting with no airflow since car is not moving, etc and fan spinning fully...then when temps drop during cruise with good airflow from car moving the clutch/controller disengages the fan at least partially and fan freewheels some.

 

http://www.ehow.com/how_5086903_test-fan-clutch.html

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