Honda Civic - Engine Block

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Darwin18

Darwin18

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This is more of a heads up as this happened to me this past Christmas.

I own a 2006 Honda Civic EX with 75,000 miles on it. It has run well for me and aside from replacing tires and routine maintenance, I have not had any problems with it. We drove my car from North Carolina to New York and Massachusetts to visit my family and my wife's family. The weather in NC was fairly mild but in NY and MA it was pretty cold.

We were making the return trip and were in Maryland when I noticed the temperature gauge was all the way to High. I pulled over to a service station thinking that I had a coolant line leak. The mechanic pressure tested the lines and we discovered the leak from coming from a crack in the engine block. It was easily visible when under pressure. It took several hours, multiple stops, and about 3 gallons of anti-freeze to make it back to NC. I pulled into the driveway at midnight with smoke and burnt antifreeze pouring out from under my car.

It was a miserable ride as I was trying to contemplate how I was going to come up with the cash to purchase a new vehicle. I hadn't been planning on it since my Honda had less than 75,000 miles on it. After talking to a friend who was a former Honda salesman, I learned that Honda has a recall in place for the engine blocks of the 2006 models (and a couple years before and after). I dropped my vehicle off at the nearest Honda dealership and they replaced the entire engine at their cost. I hadn't heard of this before but I am certainly not the first person this has happened to so I thought I would pass the information along. And before anyone bashes me for owning a Honda Civic - when I was 21 years old and fresh out of college, my options were very limited to what I could afford.
 
I was a little apprehensive bringing it to Honda and had printed out all the documentation I could find on the known engine block issues. The maintenance supervisor just heard coolant leak from the cracked engine block and knew immediately about the recall. They even had replacement engines in stock ready to go - I had my car back in three days. Not bad mouthing Honda in any way; they owned up to an engineering flaw and made it right with me. Now this car will never die - which is semi-unfortunate because I'm thinking that I don't want to be my 30's and driving a Honda Civic.
 
I used to own a 2006 Honda Civic EX that had a hairline fracture in the engine block that allowed coolant to mix with the oil. Same thing, the dealer replaced the engine block at their cost, but it never ran the same after that. I sold it shortly after and was glad to be rid of it. It was a nice car prior to that though...
 
Absolutely nothing wrong with driving a Civic. Other than the engine block recall, which I also have not heard about, they are very good cars.
 
I'm an American Car kind of guy (worked in the Auto Industry for many years and generally prefer the American designs, but that's all changing the past 10 years or so), but I would not be averse to driving a Civic. Supposedly great little cars.

It's always a GREAT idea to check for recalls before having work done. A friend had an ABS light on for a while and I asked why he didn't get it fixed and he said it was going to be XXX hundreds he thought. WE looked it up and there was a recall on those cars due to road salt getting in the sensors. Next week his Dodge Van had no ABS light and it was free!

There are a LOT of recalls on record, but many times you have to look them up.

http://www.recalls.gov/nhtsa.html
 
Wow that's nuts. Glad they took care of you for it.

No shame in owning a Civic!

I'm 34 years old and my wife and I have 2 Honda civics in our stable, a 92 and a 2000 as our daily beater cars. These cars are super reliable (one has 171K miles, the other 226K), get 40 mpg on the highway (My record was 46.5mpg on a trip!), are easy and cheap to maintain and dirt cheap to insure and because of their age and mileage we pay no personal property tax on them. Also by having older cars on our auto insurance we are actually saving money on our total insurance bill by listing the Civics as "commute" vehicles.

I would never be without a Civic!
 
I had a 2003 EP3/Type R, couldn't help but giving it some vtec every day of owning it. Wallet didn't like it though, esp with the gas prices I had to put up with back in Scotland!
 
When I turned 22 and was graduating from college I bought a brand new 2008 4x4 Dodge 2500 Cummins Diesel. That was probably not the best decision financially. But damn I loved that truck. Until it needed to go into the shop every month and diesel prices skyrocketed. I traded it at 78,000 miles for a 535xi.

I know a few people with newer Hondas I've worked with, seems all of them have given the owners some bad headaches. It's nice a manufacturer today actually stood behind something. I know Dodge sure didn't with that 2500 I had. Will never own another and recommend nobody else own one either.
 
landshark said:
When I turned 22 and was graduating from college I bought a brand new 2008 4x4 Dodge 2500 Cummins Diesel. That was probably not the best decision financially. But damn I loved that truck. Until it needed to go into the shop every month and diesel prices skyrocketed. I traded it at 78,000 miles for a 535xi.

I know a few people with newer Hondas I've worked with, seems all of them have given the owners some bad headaches. It's nice a manufacturer today actually stood behind something. I know Dodge sure didn't with that 2500 I had. Will never own another and recommend nobody else own one either.
Click to expand...

I would love to have a diesel pickup one day but only as a 3rd vehicle to haul stuff and pull a trailer for cutting firewood and tow the motorcycles. What I don't understand is people who buy diesel pickups just to commute in or run around town and never use for what they were designed for. With the price of fuel and maintenance I just don't understand that. I feel it must be an ego thing "I must drive a massive vehicle or I'm not a real man!" If you can afford a $50,000 pickup you can afford a $2,000 beater car to save you $3,000 a year in fuel for daily driving.
 
I had a 97 Civic EX that I got rid of with 172k miles on it only because the snowdrifts were getting larger than the car when I lived in SoDak. I needed a 4x4. It was also hard to get two hunting dogs, two shotguns and two people in...
 
Jayhem said:
I would love to have a diesel pickup one day but only as a 3rd vehicle to haul stuff and pull a trailer for cutting firewood and tow the motorcycles. What I don't understand is people who buy diesel pickups just to commute in or run around town and never use for what they were designed for. With the price of fuel and maintenance I just don't understand that. I feel it must be an ego thing "I must drive a massive vehicle or I'm not a real man!" If you can afford a $50,000 pickup you can afford a $2,000 beater car to save you $3,000 a year in fuel for daily driving.
Click to expand...

LOL, I purchased the truck my last year of college, still lived on the family farm, had the gooseneck installed to pull trailers, and was planning on hauling as a side job (actually did a few times). Then my parents sold the family farm like the next year and I got married and moved into a suburb, without the farming anymore, I had the truck for another year and a half when it hit me I didn't need the truck. So I traded it for the sedan. I didn't get a beater though lol.
 
landshark said:
LOL, I purchased the truck my last year of college, still lived on the family farm, had the gooseneck installed to pull trailers, and was planning on hauling as a side job (actually did a few times). Then my parents sold the family farm like the next year and I got married and moved into a suburb, without the farming anymore, I had the truck for another year and a half when it hit me I didn't need the truck. So I traded it for the sedan. I didn't get a beater though lol.
Click to expand...

My comments weren't aimed at you. Just a general observation and pet peeve of mine. I live in a small country town and the number of people I see just driving around running errands in a dually diesel pickup amazes me. How can that be your only vehicle? :p
 
Nothing wrong with a honda. Even if you do want something else hang onto it just for commuting. I have a 60 mile round trip commute, and parked my full size pickup and bought a 2 door accord for my daily commuter car. I love driving a manual transmission vehicle, and the 2.4 honda engine is very strong for it's size and fuel economy. I can own, insure, and feed it for the cost of fuel in my truck. The truck is paid for, and I need it for towing the boat, hauling stuff around my folks farm, etc. so I may as well hang onto it.
 
I love my Civic. It's a 2010, though, so I wonder if it's in that window of a few years before or after that you mentioned. I'll check the link posted above.
 
nukebrewer said:
I love my Civic. It's a 2010, though, so I wonder if it's in that window of a few years before or after that you mentioned. I'll check the link posted above.
Click to expand...

You are good. The trick is to NEVER buy the first model year of a redesigned car model. The Honda Civic was COMPLETELY redesigned from the ground up for 2006 and it takes car manufacturers ~2 years of a new generation to get the bugs worked out.
 
Darwin18, thank you for posting this; I read with interest last year as my wife's car is also a 2006 civic. This week her civic overheated, quickly stalled and now there's an obvious crack in the block. Though I'd have probably found info about the replacement when searching the stall online, I wasn't too worried when it happened thanks to this post. Honda's got it now and is evaluating on Monday - hoping my experience goes as smoothly as yours.

Thanks again.
 
my first brand-new car was a '97 Civic LX

LOVED that car. up until the day, 3 years ago when I left it in the parking lot of the local Wally World with a FOR SALE sign and it sold in a couple hours.
 
Number 3 son has had 2 Civics, both bought used. First had an electrical fire when it was parked, total loss. Never thought to look into a possible recall. His second has been good to date.

I have a 90 Dodge 2500 cummins 2WD, bought it new and have had pretty fair luck with it. I've beat the heck outta this truck hauling hay & firewood, going to the dump, etc. but it keeps goin'. I've had a couple others without the same satisfaction.
 
I'm 31 and have a 97 Civic... I love it. It cost me $200, gets 35 MPH and has over 225,000 on it. I drive 36 miles per day to work round trip... beats driving my Tahoe. I think it paid for itself within 3 months. No shame in a Civic. They are great commuter cars, cheap, and run forever.
 
Komocabo said:
I'm 31 and have a 97 Civic... I love it. It cost me $200, gets 35 MPH and has over 225,000 on it. I drive 36 miles per day to work round trip... beats driving my Tahoe. I think it paid for itself within 3 months. No shame in a Civic. They are great commuter cars, cheap, and run forever.
Click to expand...

my '97 sold 3 years ago for $1500, but only had 130k. thought I was getting ripped off.

you got a deal
 
It's the confirmed defect - when the block cracked it got so hot so quickly that the oil dipstick actually melted. Fortunately we're well within the 10 year extended coverage and Honda's beginning the replacement tomorrow.

I'm certainly not happy that there was such a defect but am thrilled with how Honda's sticking by their product. The real hitch is that now I'll probably be in my mid 40s before this thing finally bites the dust - great for the wallet but not so great for the ego.
 
For anybody interested, Honda took care of us really well. It took about two weeks, but there was a holiday to slow them and they had to send the head out to the machine shop to ensure it was still flat after overheating so badly. While they were in there, I also had them change the spark plugs, timing chain, serpentine belt, associated parts and transmission fluid - no charge for any labor since it was already tore apart or for towing the car and they even discounted my additionally requested parts at the end.

Really happy with Honda.
 
Darwin18 said:
This is more of a heads up as this happened to me this past Christmas.

I own a 2006 Honda Civic EX with 75,000 miles on it. It has run well for me and aside from replacing tires and routine maintenance, I have not had any problems with it. We drove my car from North Carolina to New York and Massachusetts to visit my family and my wife's family. The weather in NC was fairly mild but in NY and MA it was pretty cold.

We were making the return trip and were in Maryland when I noticed the temperature gauge was all the way to High. I pulled over to a service station thinking that I had a coolant line leak. The mechanic pressure tested the lines and we discovered the leak from coming from a crack in the engine block. It was easily visible when under pressure. It took several hours, multiple stops, and about 3 gallons of anti-freeze to make it back to NC. I pulled into the driveway at midnight with smoke and burnt antifreeze pouring out from under my car.

It was a miserable ride as I was trying to contemplate how I was going to come up with the cash to purchase a new vehicle. I hadn't been planning on it since my Honda had less than 75,000 miles on it. After talking to a friend who was a former Honda salesman, I learned that Honda has a recall in place for the engine blocks of the 2006 models (and a couple years before and after). I dropped my vehicle off at the nearest Honda dealership and they replaced the entire engine at their cost. I hadn't heard of this before but I am certainly not the first person this has happened to so I thought I would pass the information along. And before anyone bashes me for owning a Honda Civic - when I was 21 years old and fresh out of college, my options were very limited to what I could afford.
Click to expand...

My Ex's did the same thing at 35K miles. Luckily under warranty. They replaced the motor. It's a common problem with this generation of civic - they had a bunch of bad engine castings. Crack is on the front of the engine down low near the oil pan I bet.
 
Like has been said, absolutely no shame in owning a Honda. It's all my mom has driven since 1988 -- she's had four Accords, and drives a CRV now. My sister got a (then 3-yr old) Civic when she went to college, drove it for four years and then I bought it from her for a daily driver. Sold it with 165k on it -- only sold it because Mom was upgrading her Accord, and I bought her old one. It's a 2002, and I've got just over 140k on it now, and I've never had any significant problems. (air bag recall, seat belt recall, but outside of that...nothing.)


And an interesting side note for those who feel guilty driving an "import": My 2002 Accord has a higher percentage of US-made parts than my 2006 Silverado. And my Accord was assembled in Ohio. The Silverado? Somewhere in Mexico. Which one's the "American" car?
 

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