I have an older car, the sucker works like a honda should, its a beauty, except for the normal stuff we all run into from time to time...bad main relays, D4 light blinking..etc. Anyway, I felt today something I don't think I had noticed before, I went for a ride after fixing the main relay and I drove for only 15 minutes, when I came back I felt hot air on my leg when I tried getting out of the car and touched the hood, I basically could have fried eggs and chicken legs on it, I opened it and the engine was normal, no overheating of any kind, but it did feel very hot. Any ideas? It wasn't a hot day here today and the car had been sitting unused for a couple of days since it wouldn't start. Thanks for any help.

 

Hmm, a big relay went and once you replace it the hood gets hot ... I wonder if you have a short involving the hood maybe .. like a bare wire or something.

If this relay dies shortly it might be worth your while to look for an electrical problem, doing things like disconnect and reconnect the ground wire to the battery, if there is a big spark you might want to check out the electrical system some more.

They could of course be unrelated, but these things can happen, this bare spot on a red battery cable touching the hood actually happened to me on an old car once.

hth

 

It's kinda normal for the hood to get hot, so that may be almost normal. But you say you first noticed the heat on your leg. How about dragging brakes making the wheel really hot?

 

what's dragging brakes?

 

That's when one (or more) of the brakes doesn't completely release. It can be rust or crud making the brake stick "ON" after you take your foot off the brake pedal.

So when one brake is dragging, it makes a lot of heat, & that wheel becomes much hotter than the others. It wastes fuel too...