Hello everyone...long time lurker, first time poster here.

I have a question regarding my 1995 Accord. Soon after I bought the car, I took it to a Honda dealer to look over and one of the things they found was a cracked radiator.

I bought a radiator from Autozone and had someone install it. After driving around for a couple of days, I notice the temperature gauge shoot up one day, stopped the car and lo and behold coolant was pouring out of the bottom of the radiator. I'm assuming I got a bad radiator from Autozone.

I purchased a NAPA radiator and installed it myself (with a new thermostat) and haven't had any radiator issues since, but unfortunately the engine appeared to have slightly overheated because you can hear a slight rumbling sound of the piston in the cylinder at lower rpms when you rev the engine. It's not really a knocking sound, and you only hear it occasionally on the road.

All this happened 3.5 years ago...I bought the car with 118000 miles on it and I have about 172000 miles on it now. The car runs very smoothly on the road, but that rumbling sound is still present at times.

My question is should I sell the car now or keep it? I'd be happy if I get 230000 miles out of the car, but I don't want the intermittent rumbling to become a greater problem as I get closer to the end of the car's life. I figure if the car has made it 3.5 years without the noise becoming a knock, I might be able to drive the car for years to come.

What are your thoughts?

 

Not exactly sure what you mean by the noise. Is it in one cylinder? Do you have a check engine light? Does it get worse when you rev? Does it always come on at low rpms? My opinion, which is only that, is I figure if you did any real damage it would've made itself evident in 54k miles tbh so I think you're going to be fine. Although if you want to drive it for another 4 years paying 100 bucks to have a mechanic check it out wouldn't be a bad option.

 

Faraz...It's a rumbling noise...not really sure how else to describe it. There is no check engine light and the noise actually goes away at higher speeds. Even at lower speeds it's not always present, but that is when it is most noticeable (especially while accelerating from a lower speed). I actually did have a mechanic check it out shortly after it overheated and they said the 3rd piston was moving around in the cylinder. So I guess that cylinder is slightly oversized and the piston makes a rumbling noise in it if you hit the right frequency.

I'm just wondering if the dynamics of the piston moving around in a slightly oversized cylinder will eventually cause something to break? Will the piston rings wear more quickly than an undamaged engine would? I don't appear to be burning oil any more quickly than normal.

 

All you gotta do is compression test the motor. If you have any issues it will show up in the results. If the results check out, then the sound is something that is easily fixable compared to a bad engine.

A compression tester is about $20. You remove all the spark plugs, remove the 15a ecu fuse in the engine bay fuse assembly, hand thread in the tester in each spark plug tube and crank the engine til the gauge stops going up. Do it for each cylinder. Make sure not to use any adapters that come with the tester, they are not needed.