Did I f^ck up my car’s engine? Is it likely going to seize up? How worried should I be about how badly I f^cked up? Am I a naïve and stupid person?

[WhiteBoyChill]

I finish work. It’s time to go home.

I start my car. Notice a check engine light on right away and think to myself “eh no big deal, I know I have to change the oil soon anyway, and that’s probably all it is”. “My house is only seven miles away anyway, and I can run diagnostics later”.

I’m driving home, for the most part everything seems fine. Nothing all that alarming. Car sounds normal, everything feels 95% normal.

Only thing that seemed off was the car would sometimes stall a little bit when the transmission changed gears.

I get home though, examine under the hood and notice a burning smell. Clearly I messed up.

I turn off the car, report everything to my Dad. He gets home later and notices that my car had leaked a small amount of radiator fluid on the driveway. We examine it some more and determine it to be a small, slow leak.

But get this: The dashcam of my car never told me I was leaking any fluid while I was driving. It was just a generic check engine light.

Anyway, my Dad noticed that the radiator fluid is completely gone.

Which basically means, I was driving my car while it was overheating, hence the burning smell.

And I was driving it with hardly any radiator fluid to boot.

Then my Dad scared the living shit out of me and says that its possible the engine could’ve seized and my car might not ever start again.

Thankfully, after topping it up with radiator fluid, it did start though.

So we drive it straight to the mechanic, and as my Dad’s driving, he notices it starting to overheat again.

He stops the car immediately.

We examine the car again, determine it to still be leaking, however we come to an immediate realization after checking the radiator fluid level.

The car barely leaked any radiator fluid. The radiator fluid was still almost completely full.

The real issue: The radiator system was clogged somewhere, causing the leak to occur.

But how worried should I be that I might not ever be able to start my car again?

Updates

+1 y

I feel like an idiot, but part of me wonders.

Do all sorts of people make these mistakes?

Also, as a side note. My Dad had one of his car’s engine’s seize up.

His car had a history of overheating, but he was always prudent about it. One day it just wouldn’t start though, and the mechanic determined it had seized.

Updates

+1 y

The mechanic said it just needs a new radiator for $600. Easy enough.

It appears nothing super serious happened

[AviatorTom]

Lesson learned. Pay attention to the Check Engine light. It's how the car tells you it needs help.

As others have said here, the engine is probably okay, so long as you get the cooling system fixed. Do whatever your trusted mechanic tells you. If the radiator is replaced, it's good to put a new thermostat in too.

[Redstang88]

Well sounds like it overheated pretty bad. If it was gonna worse immediately it would’ve already, but there was likely some damage.
The engine light is just an indicator that there is some sort of issue, that’s why there’s gauges to monitor things like coolant temp and oil pressure, etc

[DryGermanGuy]

What was the smell? An overheating engine gives off a very specific smell, like chalky water evaporating on a hot cooktop.
If you’re unlucky you have damaged the engine head gasket, if you’re really unlucky, you have warped the engine head itself.

[WhiteBoyChill]

I would characterize the smell as being identical to the smell of an old heater in your home turning on in the winter

[aengus27]

Probably best to replace the radiator then. In my case I was going through coolant really quickly, but it was just cos the overflow was blocked. So it could be that

[exitseven]

it should be okay but it is surprising the temperature gauge did not tell you it was over heating.

[WhiteBoyChill]

I wasn’t paying much attention at all to the gauge tbh. But I definitely did see it in the red zone though.

I don’t know why it didn’t register in my brain though that I should’ve been alarmed

[exitseven]

@WhiteBoyChill I will let it slide this time but you need to pay attention to this stuff. I even showed my daughter what the gauges meant and how to check a radiator and do an oil change.

[LunarEclipse433]

Flush or replace the radiator. Add fluid and see if you have issues

[Dongie]

It sounds as tho it will be fine.

[WhiteBoyChill]

I hope so. We shall see what the consensus is though