Bubbling sound from engine after long day driving.

[akaiEG5]

its only been like 4 days since i got a new civic, and tonight i took it for alot of driving today i think around 120km or something like that.

but after parking it in the garage i can hear this bubbling sound from the engine. i think its coming from the radiator but is this normal???

on the taco the engine heat seemed below middle but the noise is this normal?

just freaked me out cause i remember hearing this on my old eg5 and the radiator blew and starting to steam and leak everywhere!!!

just wanna know if this is quite normal... i stopped the car started it up again maybe around 10 time or more as well during the day....

[squish85]

bring it back to the dealer for a check ? I presume its under warranty since you mentioned that it was new....

[bennjamin]

is the radiatorfan working ?

check or replace

radiator fan
thermostat
radiator (for blockage)

[aaronng]

It's a new civic, bring it to the dealer.

[digler]

Does it sound like gas escaping? if it does it is probably due to you having the a/c on and the gas pressure is equalizing in the high and low pressure sides of the system after you have turned it off.
if so this is quite normal

[JohnL]

Assuming it is coming from the engine itself, it's not normal. A 'bubbling' sound from the engine suggests bubbles in the cooling system (such insight...), and that shouldn't happen if all is healthy. Gas in the coolant could be from a blown head gasket or cracked casting, or could be from a hot spot in the cooling system, i.e. some part of the engine is for some reason much hotter than elsewhere in the motor.

If this is happening then when you're driving the coolant flow will tend to keep the temp at that point within reason, and the temp gauge may well read normal. When you shut down the coolant flow stops (it doesn't actually stop because the thermo-syphon effect keeps it circulating, just much more slowly than with the water pump going), and then there will be a heat soak from the localised hot metal causing the coolant to boil just in that one place, and you hear a bubbling noise.

I'm not saying this is definitely your problem, it's pretty rare, and would suggest a blockage somewhere in the head (which is most likely where it will be happening as the head is where most heat is generated within the motor, not counting the piston tops).

It might also be caused by one of the injectors being blocked (or whatever might cause it to inject too little fuel), which would cause a lean condition in one of the cylinders. Lean mixtures burn hot, and thus you might have localised overheating of the head casting either in the head roof or in the exhaust port on that cylinder. Just speculating...

If the engine was not properly filled with coolant in the first place then there would initially be gas in there, but I'd expect it to be expelled and replaced by coolant from the overflow bottle in a fairly short period (a couple of drives). In any case I doubt this would explain the bubbling noise with the temp gauge reading normal.

[akaiEG5]

thanks for your suggestions~
yeh it seems to keep happening even after a short 20 min drive today... :(
i was thinking maybe the radiator coolant was not filled to the top but never got a chance to open it cause the radiator was way too hot.~

some people were telling me all new cars do that??? but i asked someone who just
bought one as well and said theres aint a single sound when the engine is turned off.~~

i'm just gonna chuck it to the dealers tmr morning and see what the problem is~~ geez~~~
cant believe this is happening to my car just bought last week...

i'll post up what the problem was..~

hopefully i'll get a Honda mug or something for the inconvenience~ kkkk~~~ :)

[akaiEG5]

took it to the service centre and they checked it out...
they said its just cause its new you gotta do atleast 1k to makes the engine
kick in and it wont make that sound ne more... `~~~

to me it just sounded like an excuse to get me out of there without anything done to it...

lol all they did was opened the radiator make a mess in my engine bay.... geezz~~

hopefully it will stop at 1k~

[WTNESS]

if i was u ill give it to them, let them drive it till it hit 1k, check if everything works fine and then u can have it back

in the mean time u have a loan car...

[trism]

let mechanics drive your car?

and thrash the shit out of it

i dont recomend it at all

[omgzilla]

If it's a new car it is possible that the cooling system has not been 'bled' of air from factory.

It may just be a pocket of air trapped in the cooling system during filling at time of manufacture.

I've seen this sort of thing before however, in a totally unrelated scenario.

[akaiEG5]

well it seems as if it has quiet down abit now...
the bubbling sound is getting less and less..

i'll update once again when i hit 1k~ :)

[omgzilla]

Good to hear. Just keep an eye on it and if it's still there in another week or so i'd be taking it back to Honda to get it pressure tested or at least a decent check-over.