In article , jim beam wrote:
Jason Johnson wrote: > In article , "ski" > wrote: > > I have a 1986 Honda Civic, Automatic Transmission, fully loaded, it has > few problems when ever the AC is turned on the car heats up. I have > been to car mechanics and after few repair touches they say now it will > be ok. But the problem persists. > > The other problem is that due to i think age factor the speed of window > opening and closing has reduced a lot... > > So if any one has a practically applied tip for me please advice. > > SKI > > SKI, > These sorts of issues are common with cars that are over 15 years old. > When I took a trip to Los Vegas via Interstate highway 58 which caused > me to have to travel thru the Mojave Desert (Death Valley), I saw at > least a dozen old cars next to the road with steam coming out of the > radiators. and how many were hondas? i drive that way every couple of months, have done so for nearly 10 years [family in vegas] and i can count the number of broken hondas on the fingers of one hand. in fact, i've done it on a half empty radiator, and the car /still/ wasn't overheating. in july. > The best solution would be to trade the car in on a newer > car. jason, with respect, "buy a newer car" is not a solution. new cars break down. in fact, new [post 2000] hondas are really nothing special in the reliability department at all. there's a thing called a "bathtub curve" in reliability stats. it means there's a comparatively high probability of failure when new, then it drops off significantly, finally rising again towards the end of the design life. if this vehicle is still in the low part of the curve, it's got a lower probability of failure than a new car. at least, when the current problem's been fixed at any rate. which is what the op's asking about.
Jim, I did not write down the types of cars that I saw but did note that all of them were very old cars. I did not see any newer cars. I saw some signs indicating that air conditioners should be turned off to keep cars from overheating. I kept my AC on and the temp. guage ever went past the halfway mark--I have a 99 Accord EX. I still believe that cars that are 15 or more years old are more likely to have cooling system problems than cars that are less than 7 years old. The reason is usually due to the build up of rust. I once flushed out the cooling system of an old Chevy and was amazed at all of the gunk and rust that I flushed out of that car. As you know, many people NEVER have had the cooling system of their cars flushed out. I doubt that rust is much of a problem with the alum. engines. Old cars are also more likely to have rusted out radiators that leak. Jason