About 2 weeks ago(on a friday) I got a coolent flush done on my car at a certain oil change place, the next day I had to work over night at ProKart changing the track layout. After that (sunday morning) I was heading out to my mom's house wich is about 15 min away from ProKart, I get on the freeway and I notice my heat gauge pegged on hot, I pull over and eventually find the nearest oil change place to top off my coolent and see why I am out of coolent. They said the people who did it forgot to put coolent in the radiator, so they topped me off and sent me on my way. About 5 days later later I am over heating again, stop at the oil change place where I had the flush done at and they topped my off again and sent me on my way. 2 days later it happened again, took it to get topped off again and they told me to take it to my mechanic to see why and where it is leaking from. My mechanic said they couldnt find the actual leak but topped it off and sent me on my way agiain. After they checked the leak it seemed to stop leaking.
Then last monday, I was on my way home from fighting my ticket and noticed smoke coming from my engine bay, but my heat gauge was fine, not 3 min later my gauge was pegged on hot. I exited the freeway and managed to find the oil change place, they topped me off and told me to go right to the place I had the flush done at and have them look at it. I leave that place get on the freeway and my gauge is pegged on hot again not even 3 min later. I go back to the store and they say that it is my thurmostat, they had some one come from forever away to put a thurmostat in my car. An hour later he is done and I start my car up, it starts no problem then CLUNK, I shut the enginge off and ask "what was that?", they told me that they dont know what it was and had me start it again, started just fine again then CLUNK it dies.
They send me to their mechanic to see what is up with my car, on wedness day I get a call from the mechanic saying that the timing belt broke and that is why my car died, it has nothing to do with the oil change place the overheating has nothing to do with it at all, so now I am stuck with a $150 tow charge to the shop(the shop was literally 5 min away) and a $50 diagnostic charge. After hours on the phone with the oil change place I finally get them to pay for the tow, but not the diagnostics. I pay that and get a friend from work to tow it to his house and take a look at it, he got it on thursday, and has told me that I need a headgasket, a waterpump, and a timing belt for sure. The head is at a machine shop getting pressure tested to see if there is any valve damage or warpage due to over heating.
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This is a picture of my water pump gear that is in the timing cover, the gears sould be parelell with the plastic cover. The gears have actually tweaked out and to the left, pushing the plastic cover over and out a little.
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Here is the broken timing belt, both the mechanic and my friend say it broke because the water pump froze and snapped the belt, also causing the bent/broken water pump.
(sorry for the bad pics they are from my VGA camera phone)
If the head is in trouble I will probably have to get a new engine, it will actually end up being cheaper than just a head.






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