2003 Civic head gasket repair

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I recently bought a 2003 civic at a good price with about 165k on it that is in great shape. Of course it developed the head gasket leak that this generation is known for. Fortunately I caught it very early and it was just an external loss of coolant and the car never got to the point of overheating. I had the repair done by a local garage with a great reputation.
The repair ran $750 including machining of the head, which seemed very reasonable. The garage automatically does this with any head gasket repair, to get a perfect surface, although it likely didn't need it. The repair seems successful so far after several highway and stop and go trips in hot weather. The car is running great, is not smoking and seems to not be leaking or burning any coolant or oil or making any odd noises. Anything else I should be on the lookout for? The timing belt, tensioner, and water pump have about 15k on them, so should be good for a while. If the repair is done well, and there is no engine damage done by the leak fortunately, should I expect any shortening of the engine's lifespan due to opening it up. The mechanic said the valve train looks very clean. It replaced another 7th gen that took me to over 300k miles that still ran strong but had about everything else falling apart on it and needed prohibitive repairs to pass state inspection. The airbag recalls have also been done on the car. I'm hoping I can get to 300k again, car has no rust amazingly.
 
If the job was done correctly you will get another 250K miles out of that engine. From the factory there is a lot of slack in the gas pedal cable. Its easy to tighten up the slack.

I recently inherited a 2005 Civic LX coupe with only 33K miles. Great basic econobox from Honda.
 
Good on you for catching it early. $750 sounds quite reasonable and it seems they did a good job. You'll enjoy the car for many more years.
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Sounds great, hope you're right. I never noticed the slack in either of my 7th gens. Another common problem is the door locks failing on this model due to the tumblers falling out of position. Happened on my old one and it's happened to some other owners that I know. I don't know if some graphite sprayed in the lock occasionally would help or not. Fortunately the EX I just got has keyless so I won't be using the keyholes often. These seem to run forever although the head gasket problem is pretty common. Also the timing belt is an expense. I have to confess that on the one I just sold, I did the first belt change at about 100k and never did it again. I wasn't expecting to keep the car much past 200k but it just kept running and running and it ended up over 300k without another belt change look, over 200k on the belt, still original tensioner and water pump.
 
Nearly all auto repair shops will send the head to an automotive machinist. They don't want to risk having to do the job over because there was something wrong with the cylinder head. Before resurfacing the head, the automotive machinist pressure tests the valves to be sure they seal, they pressure test the water jackets to test for coolant leaks, and the test the head for cracks.

My grandmother on my father's side lives in New York and has a 2002 Honda Civic. Although she never had a head gasket fail, she doesn't drive her car everyday, and she never travels long distances.
 
Just keep the oil topped off and keep up with timing belt/water pump changes and you should be good to go.
 
Originally Posted By: artificialist
Nearly all auto repair shops will send the head to an automotive machinist. They don't want to risk having to do the job over because there was something wrong with the cylinder head. Before resurfacing the head, the automotive machinist pressure tests the valves to be sure they seal, they pressure test the water jackets to test for coolant leaks, and the test the head for cracks.

My grandmother on my father's side lives in New York and has a 2002 Honda Civic. Although she never had a head gasket fail, she doesn't drive her car everyday, and she never travels long distances.


From what I have read, the gasket failures tend to happen more on highway driven cars, if that makes any sense, and not until pretty high mileage. In my case I could drive around town all day long and never have seen any symptoms. But after a 50 mile highway drive, I would see temperature fluctuations after exiting the highway. And I spotted a small coolant loss. I caught it very early.
 
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