My 91 Civic's dash right above the radio always feels very hot after the car is
warmed up. I think I heard on "Car Talk" that this happens to be something usual
with Hondas of this vintage.

If the temperature gage is where it's always been, I wouldn't be immediately
concerned.

Of course, good preventive maintenance for a car this age might include
replacing the cooling system thermostat. It's a $20 part and I should think not
more than an hour of labor at any shop. It's likely a pretty straightforward
do-it-yourself job, too. It was on my Civic. (I replaced my Civic's thermostat
pre-emptively at about 150k miles.)

This assumes you have never replaced the thermostat before.

"Josh" <josh.kaplan1@comcast.net> wrote
> Hi all,
> This may be a dumb question, but here's the deal. I have a '90 Accord LX
> with 208,000 miles. The timing belt has been changed, I have kept up with
> all the oil changes, etc. It has a radiator barely a year old. Up until
> recently, I've driven the car just around town, and it's been normal wear
> and tear. In the past couple months, I've taken road trips to York, PA,
> about 5 hours from me, in Richmond, VA. I've noticed the dash feels kinda
> hot after about a half hour on the road and the area around the stereo too.
> I always check the oil before I hit the road. The temp gauge remains in the
> middle. I thought I noticed some warm air briefly coming through the vent
> even when the heat was off, recently. The AC croaked last summer and I
> never got it fixed, if that's even a factor in this?
>
> Since I've just started taking this car on the road, I'm a bit concerned.
> I've called dealers, shops, nobody wants to touch this car, because they
> have no idea what it would be, if anything. You have to drive it about a
> half hour anyway to do this.
>
> Any ideas? Anything to be concerned with? I'm going to Hershey PA this
> weekend.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Josh
> http://www.pingeek.com
>
>