I believe I have a blown head gasket, but want to see what everyone thinks because it seems weird to me. I have not had the car for 2 years, as I had a friend do a lot of body work done and repainted on the side.

I got the car back and the next day the car over heated. By the way it has 183k miles on it. I have owned the car since 2004. I changed out the injectors to 600cc new style myself prior to getting the body work done and did the usual deletes like egr, coolant plenum delete.

When it overheated, I drove it 30 minutes looked at temp gauge and noticed it was reading 3/4 to the top H, which it normally sat at the half mark. Stopped at a restaurant and it poured coolant in parking lot. Let it cool, then drove it home slowly and temp gauge seemed to stay in middle when I got home shut it down and the engine gurgled. Like coolant was draining but nothing was leaking anywhere under the car. Prior to getting to my driveway I did hear a loud POP going down my street when I was almost home.

Took it to a close mechanic and they said upper radiator hose was cracked and radiator nipple was rotted which I think i knew about so replaced radiator, and upper and lower hoses. They pressure tested the coolant system and it was fine. They said they let it idle for 45 minutes and took it for a drive and was all good. Got car back. Drove it for a long ride that next day everything fine for approx 30 minutes then again noticed temp gauge all of a sudden was going over the half way point about 30 minutes in. Was about 10 minutes from mechanic and drove it right there. Left it running so they could see. They revved it a few times to see if temp would drop, in the case of a bad water pump but didn't. I looked at exhaust and no white smoke at all out exhaust. (I always think worst case scenario so researched a bad head gasket prior to taking it in the first time). I instantly thought thermostat and they suggested lets do thermostat, which I thought about doing with radiator but they said lets do this first then do thermostat after if this doesn't fix it. I agreed so now they did thermostat.

So i leave car and they wait for it to cool down to change the thermostat. I Ubered home. I get a call they changed the thermostat and when they went to start the car it would not turn over they said it was hydrolocked with coolant. They said it has to be the head gasket. I got a huge pit in my stomach and asked them to work up a quote for me today.

When they replaced the radiator, they pressure tested the coolant system and said it was fine. I feel like I know this car very well. I don't want to pay to dig in and pay for them to get to the head gasket and then say piston or something more serious is going on. If its a bad head buying new heads or resurfacing the original ones I would be willing to do.

I just need someones advice here and if a head gasket would go bad like that? It seemed instant. And really does this mean the overheating was all due to the head gasket here since the beginning? The coolant didn't have oil in it when radiator was replaced. I got the oil changed right after the radiator replacement at a quicky lube shop and they didn't say anything about oil being foamy ( which i can see maybe they didn't notice but i checked the oil cap and dip stick at home when it did the over heat gurgle prior to the radiator replacement).

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I know this is long but I wanted to try to explain everything in detail and in the order as it happened. I also want to make sure I am not missing something else that it could be.

They also said the thermostat in there looked newer, which i never changed it in the 14 yrs I owned it. I also have a knock sensor bypass on the sensor. But engine ran excellent on the last run no hesitation, turbos spooled perfectly.

 

Welcome to ZDriver!

I'm actually going through a similar issue with my neighbor's car (2000 Honda Accord). Coolant line split but he had to get home so kept driving it... let it cool at home and now it runs ****-poor at best. I replaced the hose and pulled the spark plugs to find cylinder 3 full of coolant. #ded

If a cylinder has coolant in it... the headgasket has blown, or the head has warped / cracked. Time to face the music.