My girlfriend (honest!) got home yesterday and left her 300M running in the garage with the car’s a/c running for about two hours. When she went out there realizing what she had done she found the engine off and it was very hot in the garage. When I got home she told me what had happened and that the car would not start. I got in and it fired right up and ran fine when I took it out this evening.
So my question is does this car have an over temp protector that automatically shuts a hot engine down in order to prevent damage? I know that some marine outboard engines have over temp protection in the form of a rpm limiter in cases of over heating and am hoping that the 300M does too…or do we have to be on the lookout for problems like a warped/blown head in the near future?
Thanks to all who might help.
As in the lyrics of Rick Springfeild , “Where can I find a woman like that!”.
Don’t worry. The computer made sure no damage was done.
Tester
if the garage is sealed enough, it’s possible the CO from the tailpipe choked off the oxygen required to burn the fuel and made the engine stall. People kill themselves by running a car in a closed garage - I would guess it’s possible to stall a car out via the same method. Once you got there, there’d been time for the garage to vent and the oxygen to replenish.
Good point. It’s also possible that if the engine were not really running at its optimum the engine could have loaded up to the point that it died.
If there’s no carbon monoxide detector in the house, please buy and install one right away. Otherwise, if this happens again overnight, it could have a very bad ending.
I think it may have choked on its own exhaust fumes. She’s lucky she wasn’t asphyxiated when she went back out to the garage.
There is no overtemp protection on these, but with both cooling fans blasting, it’s not likely it overheated or that any harm was done. The cooling systems on these are very good, and the 3.5L engines aren’t known for warping heads or blowing headgaskets. I had mine (older car, same powertrain) idling for over an hour on a stalled expressway in 105 degree heat with the A/C on, and the temp gauge never budged from normal.