Honda - Accord :: 1994 - Overheating When Hit The Highway And Accelerate
Nov 21, 2012
Alright, car's overheating, but generally not at under ~55mph or so. When I hit the highway and accelerate, the thermostat climbs and hovers 3/4s of the way to red. But only sometimes. Sometimes, often when I'm going down a hill, it will swings down to normal. Once it's gotten hot, if I take it off the highway and am idling or driving in the 15-40mph range, the temp gauge will spike. But only sometimes. Sometimes I'll hear the fans kick in while it's idling/overheating. The temperature will go back to normal, and then rise again and stay there or spike (seemingly randomly). It's never reached all the way to the red, but it toes the line. And I take the darn thing into the shop and it refuses to overheat.
I've taken the radiator reservoir out and there seems to be green fluid (antifreeze/coolant?) in the water (have flushed it repeatedly)...and over the course of several weeks, the water level itself will go down. Both fans and the thermostat have been replaced in the last 6 months. Additionally, the timing belt and serpentine belt have been replaced within 5 months, as have affected pistons.((S/N--RPMs are really....low? ~2500 @ 75mph? but don't seem to correlate w/temperature. would they effect it?)
I took it into my shop and they said "we ran all the tests and couldn't find anything wrong." Cool? I'm at a loss..
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Honda Accord 1994 EX
Problem: over past two weeks (around 200 miles) car's acceleration became less and less effective. Need to rev car to higher and higher rpms to accelerate and shift into higher gears. Now it's hard to get up a hill, in 2nd gear at 5000 rpm.
I don't have a compression tester.
-Car starts fine. No pings.
-Exhaust blows fine and no smoke.
-Checked for vacuum hose leaks, none at all.
-Spark plugs look fine, there's no oil in spark plug wells.
-No check engine lights. '
-Oil on oil stick normal color.
But ...
-Recently coolant ran low. But engine temperature never shot up.
-Recently (over 2 weeks) oil went from full to near empty. Oil light didn't go on.Lights on my dash work (abs, brake, etc.)
Given loss of coolant and oil, I though it would be blown gasket. But spark plugs and wells look clean, and there's nothing whitish in oil. Maybe coolant and oil loss are due to running car harder to accelerate.
-If cat was clogged, would exhaust blow well? If I drill hole in front of cat, will it run normal? (don't worry, I'll get it changed, or fix it.)
-If fuel pump the problem, wouldn't I hear it on start up?
-If battery and/or battery cable bad, wouldn't car have trouble starting and revving up?
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I noticed my '94 accord LX slipping a bit mainly between 2nd and 3rd gear. I took it to my fairly trusty local (non-chain) mechanic who drove it a little and said he thought trans death was inevitable but he could not estimate when it would happen. Car has only 126K miles. He wanted to re-build it for $1400 (which I hear is reasonable but still an investment in a car this old.) The trans fluid is full (actually a little over the full line) bright red, clean smelling. We had the trans flushed 5 months ago but just found out they used Chevron ATF not Honda. I've read that only Honda fluid should be used, so I want to get that in there. Have not been driving it since the diagnosis. Do you think that there's any chance that switching to the Honda ATF will fix this and full trans rebuild won't be needed? Or if it's slipping is the trans already toast? I've heard some people advise against trans flushes in cars this old, to only drain and re-fill- is this true? If it does have a failing trans is there any way to estimate how long it will last? We are moving to New York in about 6 months and won't need a car, so I'd like to avoid sinking a ton of money on this car, or buying a new one! If it does need a re-build, do you think it's worth it in a car this old?
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I have a 1994 Honda Accord Ex i went an had a brake booster and brake master cylinder put on my car. About 3 to 4 days later my brakes locked up on me so i had the brakes bleed, a new brake line, and a need ABS pump put on and the brakes are still locking up what is causing this to happen?
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I have a '94 Honda Accord LX 4 cylinder with ABS. The brakes work fine until I press the ac compressor button, then they rapidly begin to fade, letting the pedal go to the floor. When I turn off the ac compressor, the pedal gradually firms up back to normal. If it was the booster, it would be hard to brake, but it's not. If it was the master cylinder, the pedal would be soft all the time as the cups can not magically regenerate when the ac is off. What's the connection with the ac compressor.
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I have been having a problem with my Honda overheating while the A/C is on, this is the thing though on any day when the weather is 85 or lower I can run my A/c all day no problem. But when it is 90 degrees out side my engine starts to over heat while the A/C is on, how ever as soon as I turn the A/c off temperature needle goes back down even in 90 degree weather.....
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My 1999 Accord V6 with 180k miles has started overheating. The fans will not run unless the A/C is on. I replaced the coolant temp switch A, because the fan came on when I jumpered the pins of the fan connector. The fan will not come on, even when the temp gauge goes all the way to the top. Jumper the pins or turn on the climate control, the fans kick on, and the temp drops. Tested the old temp switch in boiling water and it tested fine. Tried spreading the pins on the temp sensor in case the connection was just bad and that did nothing.
Otherwise, the system seems to work fine. Top coolant hose gets hot first, then bottom gets hot after 10 minutes. The heat works, and I didn't see any signs of exterior leaks. What else might keep the cooling fans from coming on?
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Well, I was sitting in the drive-thru today and my car started overheating. On the way home the oil light started flickering, so I put in some oil I had as soon as I got home. When I got home I checked my oil and it was half-way between the bottom of the dipstick and add mark. Really low.
I added a half a quart when I got home and drove it. The temp gauge was getting up there 3/4 the way to the red zone, but the oil light didn't come on. I drove it to a meeting, afterwards I added a quart of oil to the engine and drove it home and it started overheating and the oil light was flickering again. No white smoke, so it's not burning it. It's got to be leaking from somewhere, right? to lose that much oil?
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How difficult is changing the whole speedometer cluster on a 94 honda accord? Mine has been messed up since i got the car. It stays on 20mph when I turn on the car.
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I noticed the last two winters oil spots show up in the drive and its only when the temputare dips below 30 or so if any warmer its not there.
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My 94 accord lx just received a replacement motor and tranny from jdm auto.its from a 95 odyssey. I had to swap throttle bodies, distributor... from the old one cuz the new one didn't have cruise control components, external coil... Now its seems rather gutless and it wont down shift when in d4 or d3 unless I come to complete stop, but sometimes it stays in 4th which sucks at an intersection! Also the shifter moves freely from first to neutral without pressing the button. and of course check engine light is on constantly. I've played with tranny cables fuses are good, reset ecu, fluid is new... every thing seems fine and the tranny that we took out down shifted fine so I must be missing something simple. timing?
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I bought my 1994 Accord LX new and am happy with it and the ~240K miles it has. Recently a very odd problem has emerged that is annoying...
Problem: The power to the radio cuts off now and then but only for a second. This of course always happens when I'm intensely listening to something like Car Talk. I first noticed it about 3 months ago while driving on the highway... whenever I tapped my brake peddle the radio would cut out. NOW the problem happens whenever it wants to...sometimes I go days without any problem, other times I can get a string of 5-10 failures right in a row and then it's "ok".
Here's the REALLY WEIRD thing... about 1:10 times when this happens BOTH the tachometer AND the speedometer cut out too! They drop to ZERO and then when the radio comes back on they pop back up to their proper readings... note nothing happens to the fuel or engine oil pressure gauges. The dashboard failures are what now have me worried.
What Have I done to address it? Nothing yet, not sure what to do... I cannot intentionally recreate the problem. Last time I took it to the mechanic for something else they looked at this but they couldn't recreate it. I'm afraid if I just ask someone to fix this it'll either cause a lot of hours to be racked up with no result or a lot of guesswork replacements.
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My 1994 Honda Accord has just lately had a start up problem. I try to start it, it turns over easily enough, but will not start. Have had a mechanic look at it two or three times but it started for him so he was unable to find the problem. If I keep trying, it sometimes will finally start, but the last time it happened it started to sound like it was running down the battery so I called the mechanic and set up an appt to have it checked. After several hours I tried it again and it started right up again so I canceled the appt. This has happened numerous times just lately and the mechanic cannot find the problem because for some reason it has eventually started each time. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason about why or when this happens and I never know when it is going to do this. I am to the point of hoping that it absolutely will NOT start at all just so the problem can be found.
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I have had my honda for a few months now and have had a few problems in that time. At first it started with the check engine light coming on when heated up but then my car began to randomly die while I'm driving down the road. Every time that it would die I was able to start it back up almost right after it died. Also when I come to a stop my temperature gauge will start to rise and when I turn the car off I can hear the fans continuing to run for about 10 mins. Now my car will drive until it heats up and then it will die and not start back up until it has cooled down. My dad told me that he thought that my main relay went bad but I replaced that and nothing has changed...
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I test-drove a 1994 Honda Accord with 140K today. Looking for reliable car for relative, and this was one of the better options, on paper at least, in the price range.It drove like a used car, but I was concerned about one thing: A ping when accelerating from low speed. It didn't do it constantly, but only when going from a standstill or slowdown back up to speed. The seller said he'd been told it was an issue with the catalytic converter. I've been told that a higher octane fuel will sometimes quell a ping in an engine with no knock sensor.Is this something I should be worried about? Is the high-octane rumor true? The car was otherwise very nicely maintained.
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When it is cold outside and I want to turn my heat on in my car, it takes a loooong while for heat to be produced. I have to have the car moving at a high rate of speed before any heat is made. Even when it is turned all the way to the hottest setting it just spits out cold air. Here is the real problem. If I have the temperature on the heat and the car is idle, the temperature gauge on the instrument panel starts to move around to the RED side(meaning the engine is hot, right?)
As long as the car is moving the gauge will stay in the BLUE(engine is cool, right?) As soon as I stop the car at a red light or sit in traffic(which is usually the case) sure enough the little temperature needle begins to make its way to the RED side. As soon as I move again, it normals again. I have taken this to several mechanics and they have said that they do not know what is wrong and they think that it may just be a faulty temp gauge(this does not seem right) I do not really know if the car is in fact overheating when the gauge starts its travels or if the car is fine and I just have something that is faulty.
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I've owned this Civic since new, now at 153K miles. This is a recurring problem that I've been having for over a year. First symptom was there would be no heat coming from the heater at idle with the motor well warmed up. Add some rpm's and the heat returned. The reason was not enough coolant in the system, filled up radiator and all OK. Then it happened again and there is coolant in the overflow tank, but pull the radiator cap and no fluid under cap. Fill radiator and all OK, but it kept happening. I replaced the OEM radiator cap with a new "Slant" brand for an '03 Civic. No better, no worse.
Last week I had a significant overheating event while on a highway. I pulled into a "Dollar Store" parking lot, went into the store and bought 50/50 coolant and shop rags and let the car cool off for 30 min. When I pulled the cap, it was a steamy mess and I let it cool some more. Eventually I put in the coolant and finished up the drive with no more overheating. The overflow coolant container was at the "full" mark all during the overheating event.
At this point I took it to my trusted mechanic. My mechanic determined that the overflow tank was clogged and he blew out the line. So, I hoped all was fixed. But I don't think so. With the car cool this morning I pulled the radiator cap and got a swish noise indicating some pressure release. The level of coolant in the overflow contain hasn't moved. It still seems coolant is not being pulled from the overflow container back in to the radiator when the car cools off. I blew into the radiator top (where the cap goes) and that did produce lots of bubbles in the overflow tank. It seems it is no longer plugged - but why isn't the coolant behaving properly?
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I changed the transmission (automatic) in a 94 Honda accord EX 4 cylinder and now it delays when starting. What I mean is if you stick the key in and try to start it normally it will just keep turning over. However if you wait about three seconds with the key in the ON posssition it will start right up like normal. Otherwise it drivers normally. I noticed the fuel pump isn't kicking on right away to prime the rail, but I didn't touch the fuel system when I changed the tranny out.
Transmission has the proper amount of OEM Honda fluid. CEL is on but I don't know how to check the codes on this OBD1 vehicle.
I am suspecting either a weak fuel pump or I missed something during installation. I double checked to make sure everything was plugged in properly on tranny.
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We have a '94 Honda accord that the automatic transmission started "slipping" in a week ago. It has 240K and runs good otherwise. It was sliping after it warms and seemed to slip mainly while shifting from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th while accelerating quickly. If you take it real easy on the gas it does not seem to slip much (the engine revs and the car does not seem to be accelerating, so I assume that means it's slipping - maybe not?).
I don't believe the auto trans fluid had been changed in over 100K+. The car sat for about 2 years and then I changed oil, replaced tires & battery and started using it with no probs until this (I've been using it for about a month now).
Today I changed the auto trans fluid (very dark/dirty but no real burn smell - and just a little metallic "shavings" on the magnetic drain plug), and drove the car fairly hard and heated everything up real good and it hardly slips at all now.
My questions are - with the fluid change making such a drastic improvement (at least for now), should I repeat the process and change it again? Should I try an aftermarket "miracle" additive to claims to prevent slipping? What about trying the Honda brand fluid vs. the "Autostore" brand Dexron VI that is recommended for Hondas requiring Dexron II (apparently they don't make D-II anymore)? Could it be something else - sensor, linkage, etc. (seems doubtful with the improvement with the fluid change?)?
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My car keeps on shaking at times, sometimes it is perfect all day. If it is shaking and I come to a light it stops. I have been to several mechanics and they all say something different.
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I'm replacing the valve cover gasket on my 94 Honda Accord. I've heard all sorts of crazy opinions on what needs to be done while installing the gasket such as using various sealants or lubricants. Should anything be put on the gasket or should I just drop it in and screw the valve cover back on?
I'm also replacing the spark plugs while I'm at it. Is there anything else I should do while I'm in there?
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