My 95 Civic was getting too hot. I checked under the hood. Had no oil. And coolant was all over the place. Radiator was leaking. I found a place willing to replace the radiator for $175 all in.

Now he has the car and calls me and tells me I should do all the preventative stuff now to avoid heartache later: replace all the hoses, thermostat, and flush the whole thing. That will make it $518 plus tax on the parts.

Advice please!

 

PFFFFTTTT!!!!!!!! You could do all of that crap in under 2 hours for less than $200.00 in your own driveway.

 

No, you could do all that for under $200. Let's talk about me - who has to go to a mechanic for such things.

 

So $343 for the additional hoses and thermostat. A flush would be included in the $175 since you said "all in," no? A thermostat costs maybe $20. All coolant related hoses should be less than $50 (including the 2 main coolant hoses). Labor = half an hour. Now what do you think?

BTW, why didn't it have any oil??

 

If you can turn on a computer, make toast, and change your oil you can fix the above.

Go to autozone and get a haynes manual. It's not as good as a helms but it's enough to do regular maintenance.

 

You can do the hoses flush and theromstat yourself with plyers ( if petcock valve is stuck, probably not since it's a new radiator) and one socket. Do you need it maybe, probably not, not critical though especially if your tight on money.
Plus they did a partial flush when they put the new radiator on. I'd say drive it if it's still hot then replace the theromstat, otherwise your good to go.

 

Thanks for the replies. I should ask them to just to the thermostat then? How much should that cost?

Oh wait. U said don't bother. So I'll just have them do the radiator. Right?

 

what he did is what known as upselling in the mechnic industry, he gets paid b comission and what he flags so the more he does the more he gets paid, do it yourself, its also how deaearships make money on recalls

 

A brand new radiator is under $86 if you have a manual trans from radiatorbarn.com ($108 if your car is automatic): http://www.radiatorbarn.com/s7...=1.6L

A thermostat cost $13 directly from Honda

Hoses are probably $8 & $13 each (need two) from Honda

Green coolant is $5 a gallon and you will need two of them (premixed coolant that's 50% water is much easier to install).

$150 in parts and a half hour install time. This shouldn't cost any more than $200 or $250 from a mechanic with ALL NEW PARTS!!!

If you can get your car home, we can walk you through the install if you want to do it yourself and save some serious cash. You'll need needle-nose pliers, a 1/2" metric ratchet set, a drain pan to catch poisonous coolant, and maybe a funnel to pour new coolant in if you don't have patience and good aim....

 

^^

/thread.

Problem solved.

This isn't rocket science, it's removing the old and replacing with the new.

 

I told him to go ahead with the radiator. I will do the thermostat, hoses, etc on my own and with your assistance. Thank you!

 

Weak.......Be a man and do it yourself....

Just wait until your bearings or die rods go bad...He's gonna rape you for well over a grand.

You need to just man TFU and do the **** yourself...It's easy as hell. Quit whining like a little girl.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by emaij &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My 95 Civic was getting too hot. I checked under the hood. Had no oil. And coolant was all over the place. Radiator was leaking. I found a place willing to replace the radiator for $175 all in.

Now he has the car and calls me and tells me I should do all the preventative stuff now to avoid heartache later: replace all the hoses, thermostat, and flush the whole thing. That will make it $518 plus tax on the parts.

Advice please!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Tell him to go expletive himself with his right hand. 175$ deal...hose and ***** you can do it yourself by going to Kragen or Autonzone to buy it.

 

From my experiences with mechanics, if you don't know them, never listen to anything starting with "I'd suggest" or "You should" or anything that would involve you paying for more... Get a 2nd and/or 3rd opinion first... And if you can do it yourself, then go for it

 

+1

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 94eg! &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">a drain pan to catch poisonous coolant</TD></TR></TABLE>

I guess getting it in my mouth can't be any worse than tasting brake fluid... yuck

 

I once ate brake fluid doing my rear diskbrakes, damn that was nasty.

 

antifreeze is 9 bucks a gallon at wallymart in va and its $5 in nevada??? desert?

 

where do you live. i will do it for 100 less then he is haha, i learned how to do all that on my own when i first got my 92 hatch. pretty simple to replace radiator.

 

or you can buy all your parts, pay me 100 bucks and i'll do it for you..oh yea, plus the gas to get me to your pad..

 

San Diego. Next time I'll come here first.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by emaij &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">San Diego. Next time I'll come here first.</TD></TR></TABLE>

word..anything you need to know about your honda, people here can help....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18CivicEH2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

word..anything you need to know about your honda, people here can help....</TD></TR></TABLE>

....if you have the time to wait for parts and answers.

 

Heck no, if you cant do it go to another place or call around. Just man up and try to do it yourself. At least the thermostat and hoses, sheesh.

 

you realize that you will need to drain some of the coolant to do the thermostat, right?
Seriously, if you have some hand tools, you can do all of it yourself for half of what the mech wants...

The hardest part is seriously the thermostat...if youre doing that, just do it all!