Q: Forgot to put radiator cap on car now car keeps running hot

asked by on June 02, 2017

Forgot to put radiator cap on now car keeps running hot and won't turn over now

My car has 113525 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.

Depending on how long the radiator cap was off for, this may have cause the coolant to leak or evaporate resulting in the engine overheating. If this continued for a period of time long enough, this may have caused a cylinder head gasket to be damaged. A blown head gasket may cause a number of different symptoms. A head gasket that fails between cylinders will generally cause a misfire and potentially compression leaks from one cylinder into another. Low compression will eventually result in a rough idling engine. When the head gasket fails between a cylinder and the coolant port, coolant may leak into the cylinder causing it to be burnt with the fuel charge in the combustion chamber. This often results in misfires on startup, especially after the engine is run, turned off and restarted and in some cases may result in the engine not maintaining enough cylinder compression to even run or start. This type of failure may not always show with a compression test. I would recommend having an expert from YourMechanic come to your location to properly diagnose the symptoms you describe.

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