Few problems today. Anyone have any ideas?

Was on the way to work today when I heard a pop from under the hood with some steam seeping through. Pulled over and one end of the coolant hose was unattached to the engine and the coolant was low. I thought it was a simple fix by attaching a stronger hose clamp and filling up the resevoir with coolant (but avoided filling the radiator). However, after a 5 minute drive back to home, pretty much every single hazard light came on as I lost control of the wheel and pedals. They all pretty much stiffened up on me. I instantly turned off the truck. After a few minutes on the phone I moved my truck to a parking space with only the check engine light on, and the hot/cold dial all the way up to hot. Does anyone have any idea what just happened as I'm honestly very mind fucked right now. Fellow TW member I spoke to believes filling up the resevoir will do the trick. No matter what I'm having it towed to the dealership tomorrow to have it serviced and the problem diagnosed, as it's about time to have it serviced any way, but what do yall think is the problem??

 

You should have filled the radiator. The reservoir only allows excess coolant out of the radiator when the engine heats up and the radiator sucks back a small amount of coolant as the engine cools.

You pretty much ran the engine with no coolant circulating. Start praying that you didn't warp the head or damage the pistons from overheating.

 

Did you check your drive belts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8yF_gD-Mx0

 

Don't think a service will help it.

 

Well, shit. I don't know anything about engines and I was told to just full the resevoir. And the owners manual didn't mention filling the radiator either.

 

At the least if not now within a few miles Head Gaskets or gasket depending what engine.

Unless you are real Lucky !!

 

Ya'll had me stressing out all day thinking the worst possible scenarios lol. Toyota just filled up the radiator and did some tests and sent me on my way. Everything seems to be all good now.

 

If you get a scan gauge II or ultra gauge you can see your engine temp in real time. It is a much improved system over your temp gauge. There's also a lot of mobile apps for this.

 

Hope its not the worst.

 

This is very good advice.

The price is down to $88 on Amazon right now. Thinking about picking up my second.

 

I can't see how it couldn't be. I'm betting we have a head gasket to replace in the near future.

 

Sounds like the dealership may have done a leak down test if they were told OP's story. OP what tests did they run?

 

Uhhh, care to explain why you think that? The hose from the radiator came off cause the clamp wasn't in place. I lost my coolant for a few minutes. The dealership filled me up and ran tests and drove it around to make sure it was good. What makes you think I'd need to replace anything?

What is a leak down test? They did a colling system pressure test

 

Thorough test for cylinder compression and source of any cylinder leaks:

The local shop (that's good enough to get my business when there's something I can't do yet) charges $150.

 

I didn't catch the part about the loose HC. Glad it was something that simple.

 

Glad it's up and running. Sorry to have you worried. I should have added that they will fill it up and see if it runs fine.

You might want to check your other hose clamps, and periodically check the coolant level when the engine is cold. I wonder why the original clamp fell off. Maybe you have a small leak, it overheated and the pressure caused the hose to come off.

 

Think that's still necessary after Toyota ran their test?

Gotcha. Yeah me too lol.

No worries. I was only really worried cause I recently got my Tacoma and my last car had engine problems to an extent it needed a new engine. Felt like deja vu. The clamp didn't exactly fall off, it just moved a few inches down the hose. I'm not sure how it happened either...but I will definitely be checking everything and keeping an eye on it all these next few weeks. I like to think all the trouble is over but who knows.

 

I don't think you're out of the clear just yet. You should definitely try to reproduce the problem and confirm that the low fluid was indeed the problem. Drain about a gallon of coolant from the radiator and drive around to see if the same problem pop up.

 

Why would you purposely drain half of the coolant from the system and then drive the vehicle? It seems that would be asking for trouble.

 

Can't say without knowing how hot your engine got. If they didn't feel it was necessary then your probably fine w/o it, but when engines with aluminum heads like ours overheat, they can crack and warp and cause headgasket failure and inlet / outlet leaks. That's when a digital temp gauge comes in so you can have a good idea of just how hot the engine got. Their test was just to see if the cooling system could hold pressure. That won't necessarily tell you if a cylinder is leaking, but if they thought you were good to go, you're probably good - you can always ask them what they thought.

You'll know soon if there was a problem caused by the engine overheating. The hose blowing was just bad luck. Just inspect the hoses periodically - there's a lot of good info on youtube for how to do that.