Civic D16Y7 Warms Up Real Slow... Or Does It?
 

Hello,

My Civic takes forever to warm up during my morning commute... I work at 8AM and the commute is from East Van to YVR (about 15-20 minute drive) and by the time I get to work the temp needle only sits at about 1/4 or 1/3. Is this normal? The heater does blow hot air but looking at that gauge does worry me. I previously owned an 04 Civic EX (D17A2) and the temp gauge was at about 1/2 after 5-10 minutes of driving the same commute in the same weather.

Obviously I am aware it is real cold in the mornings but the car starts up fine every time with no issues minus valve chatter for the first 10~ seconds that goes away, but could it really be that cold for the car to never truly warm up?

Both vehicles are always parked outside, and temps this December were around -2 in the mornings when I leave for work... is this just a "newer car" thing? Or is my thermostat stuck wide open....?

sounds like maybe ur thermostat could be stuck open. my civic (d16z6) warmed up quite quick, but i also would run it for at least 5 mins every morning (10 if it was really cold out) before my commute

If the air coming out of the vents is hot I'd say it's more likely the temp gauge sender or the gauge itself is faulty, if the thermostat is stuck wide open you won't get any hot air from the vents one you're cruising at a decent speed.

I don't really warm it up beyond the time it takes to scrape ice off my windshield tbh... less than 3 minutes? Maybe I could try getting up earlier to warm it up properly. I just don't want to damage my car by not letting it warm up "fully" when I drive it.

the sending units are pretty inaccurate from what i have gathered. but even my DA blows hot air well before the gauge catches up.

it also warms up faster than my d16 did though.

The one in my Jeep is fairly good but it has actual units on it, the one in the Prelude and the Celicas are all pretty much garbage. The Prelude reads operating temp (about 2/5 on the gauge) well before it really gets there, the air is warm but not really very hot. The Jeep on the other hand had the thermostat actually shatter and it was impossible to get any heat in it, you could let it warm up for ages but 5 minutes on the road would suck it all out.

Back to the matter of warming up vehicles, you actually don't want to idle it too long just to warm it up. A minute or so is all you really need to get things flowing and then the best way to warm it up is to drive smoothly at low speeds until things are up to temp. In a 15-20 minute drive the car should have easily heated up fully either way, and it shouldn't be dropping in temperature when you're moving.

I wouldn't worry about this issue too much. My normal operating temp is somewhere around 35-40% in my old civic.

You don't have any real coolant related issues (rough idle, no hot air, overheating) so don't sweat it.

The next steps I would follow would be:
- check/top off coolant levels
- burp coolant
- replace coolant if old

A tip I use to get my car up to running temp faster is to crank the fan temp to cold and turn off the fan completely. How this works is that you limit coolant flow to the engine only and not the heater core. The fan (when on) sucks in cold air around the coolant flowing in the heater core and is essentially cooling down the coolant.

Cheers.

Similar issue new temp gauge sensor fixed it