I have a friend who has a 1998 Civic, also a woman who has been taken advantage of at different shops. I realize a 98 might be different from an 01 but for what it's worth, my friend had a similar problem. It didn't happen all the time or really very often but every now and then the temp gauge would rise a little when sitting stopped in trafic or a drive-thru window. The coolant level never seemed to go down, it never overheated or anything, just would run a little warmer like that every so often. She had a good independent shop change the water pump and timing belt, she paid about $1,000.00 for that. The car still had the same problem, every so often it would run warm on the gauge. Then one day she called me and said the car ran hot when stopped at a red light and there was steam coming out from under the hood. I went down and checked it out and found one of the heater hoses had a crack in it. It was a rainy humid summer day in Tampa which made it easy to see where the crack was and see where the steam came from. It was cracked down where the hose attaches to the heater core inlet by the firewall. She bought a new heater hose from the Honda dealer, I put it on and topped off the coolant and the car never had the problem again. Maybe there is a bad hose or a hose with a small crack in it on yuor gf's car. It might be worth a look before spending any more money at the dealer or independent shop.
