The facts: 93 Acura Integra LS, 1.8L engine, 234,000 miles.

The situation: this morning, I noticed that as my car idled, the temperature went up to nearly the top (extreme right, to be fully accurate) and was proceeding to overheat. However, as I drove, the temperature went down to its normal spot.

I got to the gas station, as I stopped, it proceeded to heat up. I popped the hood, popped the cap, filled up the radiator as best I could (though it was boiling over at the time) and filled the well. As I drove off, it was fine, but as soon as I got into traffic and slowed up, the needle went up again.

Question: why would the temperature go up as you idle? Any ideas about the problem?

Sorry if this is an elemental problem, but I'm trying to figure out what the issue is....

i think your cooling fan isn't working. Try to check the fuses( Under the dash).

i think your cooling fan isn't working. Try to check the fuses( Under the dash).

Hmmm...okay, let me give a little more information. When I first start the car and it gets to the point where the needle moves to near (but not into) the red, I check and the fan isn't on. It moves freely if I push it, but it's not moving on its own.

When I shut the car down after driving home for an hour and a quarter, it goes into that post shut down thing where the fan is spinning.

I'll check the fuse like you say, but my guess is that it should be okay because it runs at the end and that should be the same circuit served by the same fuse, right?

BTW, the water pump is pretty new. I changed that out 16k miles ago when I re-did the timing belt. Do you have any other ideas? I'm going to the parts store tonight to get a thermostat and some pre-mixed coolant. Maybe that could be the problem.

i had an accord that had problems just like yours, it turned out that the radiator had bit the dust, it was getting clogged up and not enough coolant was gettin circulated. Flush your radiator and watch for pieces of metal or rust in the fluid.

did you ever solve the problem and was it the thermostat?? i have a similar problem with a 92 gs thanks

9 months later... I hope they solved the problem. Dead topic. Try flushing the radiator as prescribed above though. Hopefully should help. Not to hard either.

did you ever solve the problem and was it the thermostat?? i have a similar problem with a 92 gs thanks
Hey...sorry I didn't get back to you sooner...work is hard and it took me some time to recollect the issue :banghead:

It turned out that some relay switch had gone out to the fan, so that got fixed and it all went away. I work away from my car records, so I'll have to check my receipts to see exactly what the parts list was and what he wrote for the exact cause. I'll get back to you, though.

Ironically enough, my engine has just started overheating again. This time the symptoms are:

Coolant diminishes over time.
Theromostat appears to open.
It gets hot when it's idling in traffic after a period of time (and when the coolant is low).
However, when it gets hot, I just have to increase the RPM's (in neutral) and the engine cools.
Doesn't appear to be a leak under my car.
No steam out my tail pipe.


When I brought my symptoms up to a friend of mine, he said that I have a leak and it could either be external (which I have semi-ruled out, see 5. above) or internal. To diagnose an internal leak into the cylinder, he's going to lend me this radiator pressure tester and a gizmo (I haven't seen it, yet) to tell if (it's an internal leak) whether or not I have a leaky head gasket.

Any comments or thoughts?

Do you smell any coolant burning? I know after I flushed my radiator for my 100k I hadn't clamped down one of the clamps for the upper radiator hose all the way. I had been smelling a coolant smell while driving around, but when I popped the hood afterwards I didn't see anything. One day though I was showing off my engine bay to one of my friends and fired it up so he could hear my intake and when I revved the engine coolant would come out of the hose where it wasn't clamped all the way. When I was parked though none would come out so there wouldn't be a puddle or anything. It would just leak while I was driving and either burn up or leak while driving. That would help with problems 1, 5, and 6. But as for diagnosing the other 3... #2: Did you remove your thermostat in the past? If so did you put a new gasket on for it when you put it back? If you don't put a new gasket on, the seal will never be the same so you need a new gasket everytime you take the thermostat off and out. #3: Are you running your A/C? Especially with the summer months now when it's hella hot out if you're running your a/c a lot it's going to cause your car to run hotter. My friends mom is having the same problem with her Accord. I just changed the oil and coolant in it and did everything right so I know it's not any of that. I asked her if she's running her a/c and she said yea... I told her especially now that it's hot out it's going to make the car run hotter than normal. Another reason why I never use my a/c... going 80 down the freeway with both windows and sun roof open you get a nice breeze... no need for it. As with #4 though... I don't know why it'd cool down when you raise the rpm's. Maybe it's triggering the fan with the higher rpms and that's why?

Well, I'll have an opportunity to do some digging this weekend and I'll let you know what I find.