Warped head gasket

ALEA2709

MEMBER
HONDA CIVIC

Honda civic LX, 95, 204500 km.
Couple of years ago my car was overheating, I replaced the thermostat, radiator, water pump and the problem didn't go away. So finally, my mechanic at the time said I had a warped head gasket, and bypassed the auto-shutoff for the fan, so the fan's been running 100% of the time since, keeping a constant temperature. I'm not losing coolant, although I do smell coolant every time I start the engine. I drained the coolant once couple of months ago to change the thermostat, and noticed just a tad of oil in the coolant.
My question is, if I take the car in to have the head gasket re-done, what chances do I have that this will snowball into a huge repair bill for more trouble found once they're in there? Is it worth fixing it or would it be better to buy a rebuilt engine? What's your professional advice?
Thank you in advance.

1 Reply

SERVICE WRITER

MECHANIC
9,123 POSTS

If the cylinder head is damaged it can turn into an expensive repair. Honda makes a great car, and if it has been looked after well in the past, a reman engine would not be unreasonable. I prefer Jasper engines myself. You may spend $500 to get to the point of getting the head out, sending to a machine shop for pressure testing to find this out. (Find out how much to get the head off and sent to a machine shop). IF the head is bad and you want to take the reman engine, your $500 in the wrong direction. How ever it may just be the head gasket and maybe it become a $800-1000 as a guess.