I have an 01 Civic EX - vtec - 5 spd
I just bought it used 90k miles on it. It runs great the only problem I am having with it is that when i am driving the heat (sometimes takes forever to get warm) will just get cold. A minute later the temperature will start to rise. It will get to to about 3/4 up the heat gague...then cool back down to about half. It normally runs a little over 1/4 on the heat gague. I took it back to where I just bought it, the Honda place flushed the radiator...and put new thermostat in it...but no go still same problem. Driving along, heat goes cold...temp goes up. Any suggestions. I have had it in the shop 3 days and thats the best they could come up with. Also when the heat starts to get warm...the car will cool back down to its normal position usually. The top hose on the engine is hot...but the bottom hose is cool...any ideas?

my 95 does the same thing. but mostley heats up when im in vtec. i had a shop look at the water pump and check for leaks. but they found nothing. so i went to a honda specialist and they said that i might have a crack in my head gasket so check that...

I am not to sure but is there a heater core on these? Maybe that could be the problem? I am so surprised that the garage cannot figure this out.

I had a car with an overheating problem, but it wasn't a Honda. Every time I got in it, it overheated. I had to finally change cars. Because nothing worked to fix the problem.

This reminds me of about then years ago. My 89 Civic would show a high reading on the temperature gauge on hot summer days in congested traffic.

I haven't noticed that in recent years. I don't think I did anything to stop it back then, although the problem seemed to go away.

I did recently put a new radiator in it.