Good morning,

I have a question about my 04 Civic that I am hoping someone can help me with. I bought it used a year and a half ago and it had 275,000 miles on it when I got it. Ran great, looks great, no issues other than what I am about to explain.

It was pushing coolant up into the overflow tank and I had to empty it every so often to keep it from spilling over.

I replaced the head gasket, water pump, timing belt and all that last spring and then did a valve adjustment on it. After that, it did not seem to be pushing coolant or if it did it sucked it back into the motor when i parked it. Everything seemed fine.

After the valve job it was getting somewhere in the 34-36 mpg range and has been my daily driver since. Over the past couple of months I noticed a whirring noise when i put power to it, in park or when under load. Same noise, when revving the engine up it is high pitched and follows the rpms up.

When it gets to speed and shifts the sound ramps for a sec and then subsides but is still present all the way through the gears. Had the auto parts guy put a scope on it to make sure the alternator was OK and it is, the car runs fine but it has the whine? Whir? noise that is bugging me.

The other thing I noticed is that my mpg is going down a little, like from 34-36 to about 32 mpg. I figured it was the valves starting to get out of synch again and plan on doing them soon but wanted to see if that is a cause for mileage dropping off. It seems like it started dipping when the noise started.

I've tried to pinpoint the noise but it is hard to tell as my hearing is limited in one ear and it throws me off. Before I go to my mechanic I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions? Like I said, the car runs fine, shifts fairly smoothly, isn't smoking or pinging, has plenty of power and has served me well on my 75 mile round trip to work every day since I got it but it is bugging me to no end.

Thanks to anyone who has any ideas.

 

Finding a noise like that would be hard for anyone . You could try using a long rod/screw driver as a stethoscope but even that can be hard . It's got a lot of miles you may want to think about that before putting a bunch of $$ into it .