Death of my first Car

Yesterday was a sad day for me, as my first car was pronounced beyond affordable repair.

Apparently the radiator had become completely dry some how. The owners manual tells you to fill the coolant through the reserve, which I did, but it was so dry that it did not even flow. I then added it directly to the radiator, but that was not my mistake, apparently I did it while it was too hot, because the head cracked, or so was the assumption.

It is unknown if the head was cracked before or after I added the coolant, since it had overheated to the point of shutting itself off. The day before that, it got almost to that point, but not quite. It did not alert me that there was low coolant, but I still added some to the reserve the next morning after it had cooled down. I also checked the oil, which appeared to be fine.

However, as explained above, that did not solve the issue as it then overheated to the point of stalling. It said low coolant then, finally. I waited about 2 hours, but it was still quite hot (middle of the temp gauge). Even at the point where it stalled the radiator cap was cool to the touch and even could be opened. I added the coolant when it was at the mid-point (between the C and the H) but either the head was cracked from the extreme heat, or from the coolant touching the mid-gauge heat.

Either way, the result was half of the dipstick being covered in a chocolate-milk looking substance. My Mom’s mechanic towed it for free, and I will only be getting $50 for the tires, which I paid $450 for brand new, and only put 3,000 miles on them (and they had a 65,000 mile warranty).

A sad day for me, and a lesson learned.