I have a 96 accord that had overheat problem last fall, I took it to the local dealer and they replaced radiadtor/themostat/water pump etc. Two days ago, the car overheated again on the highway about 150 miles away from home - I pulled off, called the dealer, and had it towed to the dealer. They checked it, and said it's a split radiator hose - the service manager cut the hose open in front of me and there are two long splits from inside. Looking from outside, it's just a small hole.

They replaced the hose, but told me that I might have blown the head gasket. I have the car back, and have driven for about 15/20 miles, so far it seems to be normal.

My questions to all your experts there, and someone please help:

1. Could this break-down somehow related to previous fix at the dealer? What would cause the hose to have two 2-3 inches long splits from inside?
I was going to tow my car to a nearby shop to see what's going on, but the dealer asked me to tow to their facility directly - it's heck of a tow-bill even with my AAA-plus membership. And after they checked, they quickly told me it's not their falut.

2. They asked me to authorize them to open the head (but with a price of $950), I haven't agree yet. What are my options, shall I allow them to open the engine and see how much the damage is, if any? Shall I take it to other shop for some tests?

3. The car is only at 106000 miles, if I keep driving without doing anything, what's going to happen? If more damage are to happen to the engine, what symptom I'd see?

Thanks a lot.
Jay

 

If you can take the head off yourself (I don't know how much auto experience you have), it's not that hard on a 4 cylinder. A machine shop only charges around 200 to fix the head (Clean, Mill, etc). I doubt the head is completely ruined if you are still driving it without over heating. As far as the hose goes, it could have been a defective part and I know our dealership here would have warrantied the part. Good luck

 

Thanks for the reply. I don't have much auto experience. The technician told me he had done some chemical test, and found some head gasket failure.

The dealer said when they fixed overheat problem, they replaced radaitor/water pump/themostat and many other things, but that didn't replace hoses. My questions, what's the standard service procedure? Shouldn't they replace the hoses when they fixed almost the whole cooling system?