Drove truck for a few miles severely overheating, how bad did we mess up?

My friend and I changed the water pump on his 07 2.7 4 cyl. with about 70k miles. Apparently we did something wrong, and on the first test drive a few miles from his house, the pump started gushing water and before we knew it, the truck was overheating pretty much instantly. We started heading back home, and the temp gauge shot up to higher than the red mark, and stayed for a bit. We couldn't stop where we were, so he drove it probably 2 miles very very slowly back to the house. We ended up replacing the pump correctly the next day and the truck seems ok, but I am curious how much damage we could have caused. Can it lead to issues long term, like weakening the head gasket or anything? Is there anything we can do mitigate a potential problem?

 

I had some work done on my Honda a month ago at dealership It over heated on interstate. I didn’t realize and every light imaginable came on all at once. Hit the first exit and it died. The engine had to be replaced. I might have someone take a look at it. The engine would still turn over on mine but it had damaged everything. Ended up being about a 12-14k repair. Luckily they took care of fixing. I paid a $500 deductible. Hopefully you this want be the same experience! Good luck!

 

All you can do at this point is 1) make sure it's full of coolant 2) make sure the air is burped out 3) monitor the coolant and temp levels daily for a week or two. This just makes sure that it's now correctly operating.

I'd do that and wait to see if anything changes about how the vehicle runs/operates.

If you have the inclination/ability, you could do a compression test on each cylinder and a pressure test on the cooling system.

 

My step daughter ran her car hot without my knowledge until her boyfriend put water or antifreeze in it. After a month or so it started giving problems, engine felt restricted. Turned out that running it hot damaged the catalytic converter and stopped up the exhaust. Cats were just too much $ to be worth fixing plus other little problems so the car was ruined.

 

There had to be something other than a simple overheating going on there.

That sounds more like a timing belt broken and eating all the valves/pistons.

And I have no clue why you'd have to pay any deductible for damage where they admitted their work was the root cause, and they bore the burden of the repair.

 

It was a coolant hose that burst and looked like a gauge that was suppose to warn overheating was starting before car went into cardiac arrest failed. The discussion was it was a 50/50 if it was done by dealership. Luckily this was my 4 brand new Honda and i had all service done by the book at this dealership. So Honda and the dealership repaired for me. The $500 got me a new warranty. I thought they really did take care of me and I’ve basically got a brand new car for $500.

 

Overheating an engine and continuing to run it can do damage that doesn't show up immediately. I'd probably go out of my way to check engine fluids far more often and keep an eye on my engine temps. While some engines will shut themselves off before high temps destroy them, most won't. And some damage may not show up for many thousands of miles down the road but long before normal engine wear is the issue.

 

I agree refill the coolant and monitor it closely. On my 93 with 3.0 boiled it over once. Still running. You may have been luck. Would also change the oil.you could have your oil analized. Any cat dealership can do this for about 20 bucks. Just takes a day or two. I do that on every oil change just to have monitoring conditions. I might be ok yet alot of follow races with that engine regularly hot (220 -230).

 

I overheated my 2.7 and it made the coolant bypass pipe behind the intake crack on mine.

 

those 2.7's are tough.probably be ok.there a cast iron block too, bulletproof.

 

I'm hoping you are right. He is freaking out. The new pump has been on two days and temps have been fine, but he and I are both worried about damage down the road, like warped block or something.

The weird thing was, it was pretty cold out, and we only drove a few miles, but the gauge pretty much instantly shout up past the red mark, I don't know how it got so hot so fast.

 

Thanks. I think he is going to take to a shop and have the compression checked. But at this point, I guess what's done is done, so we can just cross our fingers.

 

So why exactly couldn’t you stop once it showed signs of overheating?

I’ve heard that if your vehicle ever overheats, to crank up the heater to high, and that’ll dissipate some of the heat. Not sure how true that is though.

 

replace thermostat

 

The first thing I'd be worried about is the Head Gasket. Overheating can cause the metal parts in your engine (which is most everything) to expand beyond normal limits. This can cause things to stretch, warp and otherwise fail. A compression test can sometimes show a blown head gasket - depending on where it failed. Personally, I'd keep an eye on things like fluid levels and temps for a while and see what happens. Next time though, shut it down ASAP. Even if nothing happens in the short term, in the longer term, you didn't help matters.

 

Full heat and full blower. The Heater Core acts as a secondary (although smaller) radiator. Still best to pull over ASAP.

 

Its prolly fine. Iv seen people drive their junk for a good couple weeks overheating and pissing coolant everywhere and then drop it off at the shop wondering why the check engine light is on... put a water pump or whatever it needs in it, vacuum fill the coolant and 9 out of 10 times the engine is fine. These are typically fords though... a subaru will blow out its head gasket if you make a sudden loud noise too close to it. just keep an eye on it. if you start having to add coolant every week or so or if you start having hard starts in the morning (coolant sitting in cylinders) then id be concerned, but a few minutes running hot usually doesnt do all that much damage.

 

Change the oil.....
The oil, the only thing cooling the motor was that oil...
You smoked it.

 

true that

 

If you're paranoid - run this... compression test ( check to see irregularities in compression ) - otherwise, you'll be fine.

I once dumped all of the engine oil out of a motorcycle and attempted to kill it. WOT for the next 36 min and even after it bogged down, it still managed to turn over and run like shit....