Water present on the floorboard is usually caused by one of two things. Water is circulated into the passenger compartment through the heater core. The heater core is heated by the engine coolant. If this hose becomes restricted, the water that condenses on the evaporator core will leak into the passenger compartment.

Coolant may leak from a car for a number of reasons. The most common are: radiator corrosion; a damaged coolant hose; or a water pump with a leaky gasket. In the vast majority of cases, water leaking from under a vehicle is usually condensation from the air conditioning system, or from the exhaust.

If you notice water getting into the cabin during a rainstorm, bad weatherproofing is probably to blame. You could have damaged window and door seals or clogged door drains. This can allow water to get into the door panels and leak into the passenger footwell.

If your car is leaking coolant, it can cause an engine to overheat and that can result in a totaled vehicle. The average cost of a coolant leak fix is around $786.00. If you catch the problem early on, it may only be around $100.

A car’s radiator helps keep the engine cool. If there’s a leak, coolant will be lost. It’s best to avoid driving your car if you have a coolant leak because an overheating engine is an unsafe engine!

Clues You Have an Antifreeze Leak

• A sweet aroma that you notice from outside the vehicle, coming from the vehicle after you’ve driven it.
• Puddles under the car of lime-green, orange, pink, or blue-green after you’ve parked.
• The car starts running hot or overheating.

If your radiator is leaking, coolant will be lost and the engine will have the potential to overheat. The coolant removes heat from the engine by transferring the heat through a series of coils. If the coolant level drops too much because of a radiator leak, a low coolant light will come on.

Four or five minutes of full throttle operation with little or no coolant is virtually guaranteed to destroy an engine. Ten minutes or more of normal driving with very low or no coolant will likely result in major engine problems.

If the head gasket fails in such a way it allows the compressed air/fuel to escape, the compression of that cylinder is reduced. This loss of compression results in a rough running engine and a notable reduction in engine power. This sort of failure typically is accompanied by a sound like an exhaust leak.

Blown your head gasket? Keep driving with a blown head gasket and it will inevitably lead to further car trouble. K-Seal can stop the problem in its tracks, before it’s too late. Technically you can drive with a blown head gasket, but we’d always advise against it.

There are many stop-leak products that are only designed to be a temporary fix, but not ours. A blown head gasket fix can be as easy as dumping a bottle of sealant in your radiator, and you’re good to go. The seal created from our product is as permanent as replacing the head gasket, but with less money and time.

Is it Worth Repairing a Blown Head Gasket? In a word, yes. You cannot ignore a blown head gasket and expect to keep your car running in good condition. If a blown head gasket is not repaired in a timely fashion you risk a cascade effect of damage.

Some engines will stop operating altogether within one day. You might be able to drive the car for a week, or it may last for a few months if you use a temporary fix on it. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to NOT drive if you suspect a head gasket issue.

The cost of head gasket repairs can run into the thousands, meaning it’s often easier and cheaper to scrap the vehicle than it is to have it repaired. The average cost of head gasket repair is around $1,000 to $2,000, but this isn’t because the parts are expensive.

Yes, that happens all the time. If you drive even for a few minutes with the engine overheating, it is quite possible to blow a head gasket. A bad thermostat that doesn’t open and therefore doesn’t send coolant to (and through) the radiator, can cause overheating, which may result in head gasket failure.

A faulty head gasket most often results in billowing clouds of sweet-smelling white smoke coming from the exhaust. Thie smoke is caused by antifreeze leaking past the gasket and into the cylinders, where it is turned to steam as part of the combustion process.

Overheating. Because your thermostat controls temperature of fluids from the radiator hose, a bad thermostat will cause your car to overheat. When the engine temperature has reached the operating level, it should allow coolant to flow to the engine and regulate the heat.

A car won’t necessarily overheat with a blown gasket, but you should get the telltale plume of white exhaust smoke.

A blown head gasket will not set a check engine light. Look for the sludgey/milky-gray oil on your dipstick or water droplets on your fill cap (coolant/water will evaporate to the highest point in your crank case and collect as water droplets).

Whether they’re properly diagnosed or not, those ARE symptoms. Whoever told you a bad head gasket causes poor running/idling, overheating, smoking, etc. wasn’t lying, but there are other symptoms possible such as oil in the coolant. There is a pretty durn good chance you do have a blown head gasket.

Overheating. Allowing the coolant level to run low can cause damage to a head gasket. When coolant isn’t available to pull engine heat from the block and heads, the extra heat can cause expansion on the head gasket, which often results in a blown head gasket.

Low oil should not cause a head gasket to blow unless there was engine overheating involved. The oil pressure light will go out with as little as 3-5 PSI of oil pressure but that small amount is not enough to protect the engine. It may keep it from locking up but it’s being damaged in the process.

Excessive consumption of oil can be caused by a rupture in the head gasket. Oil consumption can be caused by other things (like worn piston rings) but if your car is going through too much oil, a blown head gasket could be the culprit.

200,000 miles