How to Replace Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor 2007-11 Honda CR-V

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To drain the coolant out of the radiator on this CR-V, the drain plug is right in the center, right below the license plate up in the center. I just use a little pair of pliers. I reach in there, and I turn it counterclockwise. Once you snap it, you can probably get your hand up in there. I used a lift. You can use a jack or jack stands at home ,or just crawl on your back.

Make sure you have a catch pan to catch your coolant. No need to take the petcock all the way out, just enough to drain, that way you can control the flow. Once the petcock is open and the coolant's draining into the bucket, I release the radiator cap to let the suction inlet come out a little faster and then just set that aside. So we're going to remove the lower splash guard on this CR-V '09. It's missing all the push-pins in the front. If we had them, I'd remove them, but I'm going to go in the other sequence of how to remove the rest of it.

You have to go into the fender well just to get the two clamps in here. There's one push-pin here and here. So I'm going to use my body clip tool and I'm just going to pry them out. There's one. There's two. So these other push-pins I'm noticing are broken. Someone broke the head off them. So obviously that's going to be a really impossible to grab. So this one was accessible from out below and I just pushed down hard with my tool, like that, and it came right out.

There's another one in here that the heads broken on it. I don't think I'm going to be able to get to it to push the pin out. So I'm going to grab a pair of needle nose, whatever works for you. Got to just really use the ingenuity. There we go. There's also a 10 millimeter head bolt that goes through the plastic. It's not uncommon for these, for the clamp to spin on the other side, which this one is doing, I can feel it. I just lucked out, got it with my hand. You might have to put a pair of pliers up in there. I got it. See the clamp was broken. The plastic broke right off, so I got to hold that enough to spin it out. And now we're just going to repeat the same exact locations on the passenger side. So once you remove that last bolt, you can pull down your undercarriage shield and set it aside.

I want to show the location of the electronic coolant temp sensor. There's two in this vehicle, one and two. Temp sensor two is located in the radiator on the low tank. So first, I'm going to remove the actual connector. And let's that clip, the lock clip, push down on here. Find and locate it with your thumbs, on my thumb, wiggle it and squeeze to unlock. And the sensor is a 17 millimeter deep socket. I don't think you can get a wrench in there. If you don't have socket, you can try, and struggle but obviously this would be the way to go, nice and easy. Remove it, and you can spin it right out with your fingers.

I have already drained the coolant prior to this so if you haven't, let it cool down to the touch and then you can get a catch pan. If you don't drain it from the petcock, you're going to get a shower right now. And remove it, and there's your temp sensor. That's temp sensor two.

So now to install our ECT sensor and your coolant temp sensor two. It has a rubber gasket on it. Make sure there's no breaks to it. If you receive a new sensor and it doesn't have the gasket, you must transfer the old gasket over. This is in good shape so I'm not worried about it leaking. So I'm going to thread it by hand. And I looked up and I did not find a torque on this, and that's probably because it's going into a plastic base with a brass fitting. And plus it has an O-ring. So you're going to snug it to your gentle touch, 17 millimeter deep socket. Bottomed out, and I'm going to give it a quarter of a turn. Now with that nice and tight, we can reconnect our connector. Snap in place and you're all set.

So we're going to reinstall our under frontage shroud. So this goes under this front plastic. When I received it, it wasn't in the proper place. You have little eyelets that go in place here and they snap in. See a lot of these hanging down on people, on their cars and stuff. I mean, it's plastic and we got our great roads of New England with potholes that are wicked on the cars. I'm going to try to use some of our selvedge plastic pushpins to at least hold it up in place. There, now it's held in place. And I'll just use plastic ties and see if I can maneuver, fit them in there or I can go buy some pushpins.

If it's broken, like this one's broken, I'm going to get flat edge screwdriver. And I'm going try to pry it open. Get the plastic piece that's broken out of there. I just want to salvage this enough so that it will try to keep it up. There's three plastic ends here so I'm going to slide it right through one of them here and see if I can get it to stay so we can try to keep the edge up here. It's going to be easier than fishing a plastic tie through. Be careful not to pinch your fingers. You have to go with the vehicle then.

So now we're going to add the coolant. And I have installed this clear funnel, it's like a self burping type funnel. You can use a regular funnel if you don't have this but it's easier for you guys to see it in the visual. So I connected the correct fitting on the bottom on the radiator and this just sits right in there. Now I'm going to fill it up with the coolant. Make sure that the drain valve is tightened before adding new coolant. Check your owners manual for the type of coolant and the mixture. This has been premixed. So now that I have filled the radiator with coolant, and I used my self-burper funnel, I've left it a level that makes me very comfortable so that when I run it, it can suck any fluid down in or burp it up and not make a mess. If you don't have this style funnel, do not fill it all the way to the top. Leave some air so you can visually see down there.

Start your can and run it. We're going to run for about a half hour, 40 minutes, whatever it takes to get the thermostat to open. Make sure your heater hose connector inside your heater vent is on hot so that the heat coolant will go through the heater core and you'll get all the air out of your system. And once that happens, the fans will come on. You hear those fans. Watch your coolant level. Top it off at the top of the radiator, put your cap on, and you're ready to go.

So now that you've had the car reach full temperature and the thermostat opened, coolant fans came on. I let it sit for about a half hour. Let it cool down, and let the coolant get sucked into the system. And now it's going to be at its proper level. Close this off when you have this style filter funnel. And I take it off. You're going to get some spillage, a little bit so make sure your pan is still underneath.

So now I'm going to put the radiator cap back on. Seal that up. Check my overflow and if it's low now that it's cold, it's going to be marked. You'll see the fluid level where it is. And on the side here, there's a line and it says cold and hot and this is cold so that's where I like to use this. I can put it right on top and add to it. Check my level and it's right at the cold level which is perfect. Reassemble the cap, make sure that screws down, sealed tight and you are ready to go.

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