Well to make a stupid story short....my dad idled the max for 6 hours straight....He told me it was still running when he found it, but had trouble starting it again today. He said there was a pool of water behind the exhaust...and that it looks like it leaked some anti-freeze....now hes saying the head gasket might be busted....What sort of problems can arise from this happening? Im also thinking of adding gas to it and driving it to the mechanic instead of having it towed.
Thanks

 

j/w but y did he really let it run for 6 hours ?

 

The pool of water behind the exhaust is condensation aka water vapor.

I highly doubt it blew a headgasket that easily... if its leaking anti freeze, where is it leaking from? Check the hoses and if worse comes to worse it might even be the water pump.

If your car blew a head gasket and antifreeze was getting into the combustion chamber............... you would know. You'd be making a smoke screen that would put batman to shame.

 

Probably had a hard time starting because it was so low on fuel.

 

Out of curiosity what is "the Castrol GTX breakdown test" its the subject of the thread and was curious

 

Castrol has a commercial where they put 2 Ford Taurus's on a dyno at full speed one with their oil and one with another and one goes up in a puff of smoke and breaks down.

 

I think the point of the commercial is that they drain the oil first then run it on the dyno with no oil in the pan to show how well it coats everything and lubricates it....hopefully your dad didn't drain all of the oil from your motor before letting it idle for 6 hours

 

oh I remember that one, and they later had another one where the guy fell alseep in the car on the dyno and woke up and it was smoking like crazy.

I wouldnt think idling for 6 hrs would cause damage, if that were the case then driving the car for 6 hours would be more stressfull on the car.

 

pull out your coil pack/ spark plug, and take off your radiator cap. get a compressor and put the compress air line (seal it on sie with a big o-ring or the screw in adapt for the spark plug holes) in to the the hole and put some air into your cylinder if you see bubbles coming out the liquid where your radiotor cap goes then the head gasket is bad, repeat for each cyclinder

 

for your dad idling a VQ for 6 hours straight

 

the antifreeze you are seeing might be from the engine slightly overheating and boiling over from sitting ther for 6! hours, if it overheated bad it very well could have damaged your head gasket although unlikely...it depends on how well you cooling system is working(maintinence etc.), and the ambient tempurature. you should be alright though.

 

just use the test procedure i posted above, takes 20 min, or ask a shop to do it either or