honda accord overheated!?

Question

I desperately need my car in the AM and it is giving me big problems! Tonight, I was stopping and going around town, I noticed when I got in my car after stopping a couple of times the idle was very low and died on me, after giving it gas, I was able to get it to pull out of the parking spaces and it did not die while driving, idle seemed ok, but it might have felt a little lower than usual. I looked down at my gauges when I was almost home and noticed the temp was way up to hot, I was right down the street so I got it home. When I turned it off I noticed that it had a "fishy" type burning smell. The fan did click on right away as usual, there was a slight bit of smoke coming from the area around the fan. Also, (I read about this in some other posts) when it was 25-30 degrees a couple of weeks ago I noticed that it took my car about 20 minutes of driving to get it to warm up, a looong time, sometimes the temp gauge would even go up, only only to go down again( it did not do this today

Answer 1

You need to check to see if you have coolant in the radiator and see if you have a coolant leak.If your engine got up in the red from overheating you could have already ruined the engine as they have an aluminum head.If you don't know how to check your car out you need to find a good trust worthy mechanic to check it out before you ruin your car.Good luck.

Answer 2

ok the fishy smell was radiator fluid burning. So first check to make sure ur radiator fluid is full. Some cars use a 50/50 mix of water and radiator fluid some take just the fluid. Check your manual to figure out the case for your car. Second as your are filling check for any leaks in the hoses or radiator or water pump ( side of the engine underneath the timing belt cover) just look around to make sure you don't see any fluid dripping out of any of those places. The fact that it took ur car a long time to warm up a couple of weeks ago suggests that you were low on radiator fluid. the smoke was a really hot engine burning off the radiator fluid you are most likely leaking. Beyond your radiator fluid being low and u most likely having a leak in a hose or water pump or radiator there probably isn't anything else wrong. once you fill your radiator and there aren't any leaks your should be ok. If there are any leaks find out exactly where it's coming from and replace the hose or water pump or (hopefully not ) the radiator as needed.

Answer 3

The simple answer is that your thermostat is probably sticking.
The thermostat opens as the engine warms up to allow the water to flow from the radiator to the block in high enough quantity to properly cool the engine. The easy way to check this is to make sure the radiator is full then start the engine with the radiator cap off and wait till the engine warms up if you see good flow the thermostat and water pump are probably good.

There is another simple answer check your coolant level, I am not saying how much, I am saying check mixture levels, how cold will it protect it from freezing, and how high of a temp will it prevent boiling off.
In the cold weather your radiator probably froze up from low mixture levels or the thermostat was opening but not all the way and was blocking the flow of the water to effect the heater.

It could be either of these two they are both high probablility.
The only other thing it could be is the water pump is worn out. I would try the other two first though.

Answer 4

sound like you have a leak and you damage the headgasket. it does not takes very long to damage the cylinder headgasket when the gauge reach the red zone. before you spend money on leak repair, sniff inside the radiator for hydrocarbon using a emission gas analyzer.