With 10 quarts of oil in the pan, it sounds like an oil change was ordered but the old oil never got drained out. Now the proposition that somehow that excess oil could have worked its way into a cylinder. With 10 quarts of oil in the pan, the crank would have been sloshing in oil. And from a hydrolock perspective, there is no difference between water and oil. Was it definitely confirmed that there was water in the mix? If so, the question is, did the water enter before or after the big bang?
They did say that the crankshaft locked and then the number two piston blew. Considering that it didn’t rain that day and we are pretty sure it didn’t the two days prior I don’t think it was hydrolock. And by big bang you mean when the car stopped right?
Maybe the engine is not overfilled with oil at all. Oil floats, water/coolant does not.
Maybe this catastrophic event wound up dumping water/coolant into the crankcase which artificially raised the oil level.
Since this occurred so suddenly the oil never had a chance to be continuously recirculated with water/coolant and this is why it’s not chocolate milk colored.
One would think that if the oil pan drain plug were removed this could be verified by watching what ran out first; oil or water.
Ah, the plot thickens.
If you truely had 10 quarts of oil in the engine, the crankshaft could have whipped the oil into a froth. Oil in that condition cannot lube the engine propery. Your crankshaft sits on “sleeve bearings” and is held suspended there by a pressurized film of oil. If the oil were whipped into a froth and that pressurized oil film disappeared, a crank bearing could have seized. If that happened suddenly as the piston was flying through the cylinder, the piston’s connecting rod or even the piston skirt could have broken and the rest is history.
This scenerio is plausible.
The mechanic said that the oil did not froth and what will it mean I oil came out first or water when the plug is removed?
If water came out when the drain plug was removed, and then oil drained out after, it means that you had water in the oil, just as it would be if the head gasket blew, and then the piston broke due to hydrolock. Why is is so hard for you to accept that this problem was caused by just what I said it was, and almost everyone here agrees with the general principles of that if not the details? Pistons dont just fail, they are broken either by hydrolock or by detonation and severly bad timing. Even so, water has to have a pathway to get into the oil, a blown head gasket, a cracked head, a cracked block, or if the thing overheated, blew a coolant hose, and the coolant went up the intake. Water damaging an engine has to get into the engine somehow, and once it does escape the cooling jacket, all aich ee double hocky sticks breaks loose in there.
My point is that since this engine obviously incurred a problem that caused it to quit running in a nano-second and this means the oil pump never had a chance to circulate and froth the oil.
Any deluge of water/coolant may have gone into the crankcase where it promptly sank into the bottom of the pan. Since oil always floats the clean engine oil rose to the top where it gave the appearance of being overfilled.
IF, and I reiterate if, this is the case then when the drain plug is removed one should see oil/coolant run out, or possibly a bit of sludge depending on how much time has passed from the time this even happened until the plug is removed.
I know water is there just do know how. According to mechanic the head gasket was not blown or neither was the block or The head cracked. If it was hydrolock it had to be quick right but how did water get in and how did whatever blow crack or whatever that allow water to get happen. I would think the claims adjuster would want to have the dealership pay if it was a mechanic failure that allowed water in but they aren’t saying that.
water was in the crankcase. That much you tell us and we belive you. The piston was ruptured, yes we got that far. The failure was fast, and we have explained why. The water got in there somehow or another, and we have listed all the possible ways. I suspect your mechanic is not telling you everything he knows, and to tell you the truth I am just a little exasperated with you myself, no offense, but some of these guys here have 40 years experience as professionals, unlike my shade tree background. If I was you, I’d say highho and let it go, cause the insurance covered it and you got the new engine and what more is there to this story? No harm, no foul, over and out.
The bottom line is that the engine is destroyed and your insurance is paying the replace the motor…you lucky fellow, you.
Whether the engine hydrolocked and the chain of destruction began, as we all understood based on your first posts, or the bearing seized first and the destruction began, as you indicated in a later post, and could also have resulted from the oil system taking a large drink of water or coolant, is irrelevant.
Motor: toast. The rest is just interesting discussion on our part since we can’t see the engine. I for one wish I could. But I can’t.
I know you are real curious as to what happened,but you will never know"The rest of the story" that prompted this whole scenario.This is what frustrates mechanics and wastes valuable diagnostic time. The owner /driver usually knows what happenened, but can’t corrolate the facts. Did the car get washed? Was it loaned out without your knowledge? Did it overheat? Just let it go at this point.
Hmmm…There is water in the engine.
The air filter is wet.
And, the OP told us in a follow-up post that, “My wife was driving and left a parking lot and there was no rain or puddles and the car stopped about two miles from where she left”.
I am going to theorize that the OP’s wife may not be revealing all of the facts.
He probably wants to believe his wife, but, based on the fact pattern, I believe that she did drive though some water that was deep enough for the engine to ingest a fatal dose. She may feel guilty or stupid for having done something that resulted in the engine self-destructing, and may be playing fast and loose with the facts.
Accept my thesis, or reject it, as you see fit.
What I want to know is…where can I buy an insurance policy like that?
Just kidding guys, I’d never buy an extended warranty plan.
For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why rightisright444 is so insistent about knowing how the water got into the engine, if the mechanic is somehow responsible, and if the engine is filled with water, but now I think I know why he is so concerned about how it was caused:
The deductible for his insurance policy.
If he can’t pin the blame on the shop, then HE has to fork out the deductible for the engine repair. Depending on his policy, that might be as little as $100, or as much as several thousand.
If the shop is to blame, then the insurance company goes after them for the deductible amount, and the shop’s insurance company pays his insurance company back, and then he gets a free motor.
The one thing I’m amazed at is that no one asked if the vehicle has one of those stupid cold air intake things installed in it? Or if he has a sprinkler system on his, or his neighbors property?
Maybe the sprinklers were pointed in suck a way that water got into the air box of the car while his wife was doing something at the apartment complex, and as soon as she fired it up, and started driving, it sucked water in, and it then seized.
Heck, maybe the neighbor’s kid pointed the garden hose into the front of the vehicle, and that’s how the water got into there…
That’s my theory.
BC.
This story meanders all over town and is a prime example of what it’s like to work a customer service counter.
Getting the entire true story in one shot is like a dentist trying to remove a mouthful of impacted wisdom teeth.