I have 2008 pilot .. love it, don’t even want a newer car
I noticed the durum front page doesn’t have a section for pilots - that seems odd? So I’m just posting the problem here like other people seem to have done

a little more about myself. I’m not terribly knowledgeable about cars except I had a lot of experience with unreliable cars in my twenties. I’m out of country with my car parked out of town near the airport and have to get a plan for when I come home.

the car seemed to start running hot when the weather warmed up. Every time I’d get home and shut the car off the fan would start running and I’d notice the temperature guage in the dash showed a bit hot, maybe at 60%. Normal is 50%

perhaps foolishly I kept driving it around. I was under the gun for an extended trip out of country and didn’t have time for a broken car

the check engine light was on but the tire place said it was just the catalytic converter, which has been wonky for several years. They top off the coolant, which requires not a lot of coolant.

so I drove it 100 miles to the airport

about half way there the guage starts showing really hot, like almost to the red line. So I’m stopping the car and letting it cool off to half way , and then driving as slow as possible and coasting as much as possible for as long as I can until the reading gets too high

after several iterations I open the hood and put my hand as far into the engine as I dare, and it’s quite cool. My hand is not the least uncomfortable, more like a warm day with a breeze, nothing seems off - no smell, no odd sounds. In other cars I’ve had I’d expect it to be pretty hot even in normal operation


observing the needle on the dash gauge, it’s not like it’s swinging erratically , but when it does move up and down during drive time it’s pretty fast. You can easily observe it moving. Sometimes I start driving and very quickly it goes from half way to almost red, and sometimes it will get about to the three quarter point and stay there for a few miles.

I made it to my destination, at no point observing anything unusual in the cars function.. noises, vibrations, smells.

now I have to make a plan to get home.
my flight arrives after 6pm on a Friday.

do I:
1) just drive home and ignore the gauge until I get home, assuming that if there were going to be bigger problems I’d see it by now?
2) drive home really early in the morning while it’s cool, and play the “stop driving when the gauge gets too hot”
3) what the **** am I thinking, have the car towed and fixed asap (I’m not sure how I have the car towed and repaired when I’m not there and have the keys with me).