The Service Engine Soon light came on, but no other warning/alert lights. I have not personally looked at coolant levels yet, but the oil was changed a few weeks ago and the staff members at the shop I took it to (allegedly) checked the other fluids and said they looked fine. I don’t think I ever noticed a foul smell from the coolant.
BTW, just in case it’s worth mentioning – a little over 2.5 years ago, a major repair on the coolant system had to be performed. I had recently started the car and was accelerating from a red light when the car suddenly went into limp mode and white smoke started bellowing out from under the hood (I mean tons of smoke). Not sure if this could be related to that.
It doesn’t tell you much. Let’s say that it was exhaust gas in the coolant sending that spike in temps. The gases a) won’t stay hot; b) will migrate upward in the system. The coolant temp sensor is usually just a little metal probe in the coolant, so it would not still have had the exhaust gas hitting it.
But as mentioned, all that can be done on the other end of the keyboard is speculation with very little info.
As a matter of practical advice - and note that I am not a professional mechanic - when it goes to the shop don’t tell them anything except what you told us (and whatever other details you can remember). Don’t say “well these people on the internet said…”
Additionally, I suspect that at least some - and maybe all - of your error codes might just be cylinder misfire codes (e.g. P0301 = cylinder 1 misfire). If that is so, and given your description, hopefully the first thing the shop will do is a compression test, and maybe a cylinder “leak-down” test. That’s what I would do, anyway. But let the shop do their work. Check in if things seem weird providing as much info as possible on what they say, especially the error codes and post those in code form - a letter with 4 digits like Pxxxx
You have not removed the cooling system cap since the overheating event occurred, you would not have smelled burned coolant before the engine overheated.
Something under the hood ruptured in the past, but you don’t know what it was. That doesn’t help. You will have to wait for a technician to inspect the engine.
I missed that part. It shouldn’t take 2.5 years for the damage from that incident to show. But first, who knows? And the years doesn’t say much about mileage. Do you still have an invoice from that event where you can share the details on what happened.
While it would likely have nothing to do with the current problem, I would be concerned with oil that was black after just a few weeks. How well has this vehicle been maintained over the past few years?
I will try to find the invoice related to that incident and post back once I’ve found it. I wish I could remember what it was (I work night shift and often have family members take care of these kinds of situations for me). I do recall that the repair itself was pretty significant and that it cost around $1200.
Re: question of how well the car has been maintained – the oil has been changed every few thousand miles since purchasing the car with ~35k miles on it, and the other fluids have been checked at each oil change interval (or so I thought). Which leads me to my next point…
Update: someone went by the car and checked the coolant reservoir – turns out there was no coolant at all in it. They put water in it and said it should be able to drive the car (slowly) a few miles somewhere. They said it was better to fill it with water instead of coolant in case there’s a leak in the coolant system.
If the engine went into limp mode when I was stopped at a red light and only drove in that state very slowly (through a parking lot) for a minute or two, how likely is it that the engine is damaged/destroyed? Also, is it true that it will be safe to drive a short distance with only water in the coolant system (assuming the car will drive anywhere at all)?
Any engine with aluminum cylinder heads has the potential of the cylinder heads warping when the engine is overheated. But, if the vehicle was driven a very short distance with temp gauge pegged, you might have gotten lucky.
But you don’t know that until a mechanic can look at the car.
Yes. You can add just water temporarily to the cooling system to drive the vehicle to a shop. But I wouldn’t. One more overheating event could send the vehicle to the junk yard.
I’d have it towed.
And since the engine overheated, that also means the transmission overheated. So. have the condition of the tranny fluid checked to see if it got burnt.
Thanks for the input; I will have the car towed somewhere tomorrow. After the overheating event I mentioned occurred around 2.5 yrs ago (the one that resulted in the white smoke from under the hood and subsequent major repairs), the mechanics who fixed the car said no engine damage had been inflicted, so maybe I’ll get lucky again.
One other question… is there a chance that the car could’ve technically run out of coolant a certain number of miles worth of driving before it was detected by the car’s alert systems and it went into limp mode?
Unfortunately, yes. And unfortunately, if the coolant leaks out, the cylinder head(s) will become much hotter than the temperature gauge suggests. If this engine has a cast iron block, overheating is unlikely to ruin the bottom end, though you might need to have the head(s) resurfaced, new timing belt or chain kit, and new gasket set. If this engine has an aluminum block, especially if it’s an open-deck design, it would be necessary to resurface the engine block as well, which means pulling the motor out of the car, and at that point a working used motor is a better bet.
Since there was no steam rising from the vehicle during the overheating event tells me this wasn’t a sudden failure of the cooling system. But instead means the vehicle lost coolant over a period of time.
I did some research just now and it looks like the engine block & cylinder heads are made of aluminum, unfortunately, although the block is a semi-closed design.
