Starting Issue

[Seraphim]

Yesterday (1/10/2024)

My friend and I were driving to York, SC, from Bessemer City, NC. I was taking him to an appointment at a dealership. As we were getting onto I-85, the car "glitched" as he put it (since he was driving). The RPM needle froze at 4 for a good minute or two, and then he looked at my side mirror and saw white smoke from the exhaust.

It was when we got into York Road that white smoke suddenly came from under the hood, so I told him to pull over. I got out to check under the hood and I could smell the antifreeze. I looked under the car, and there was a massive leak on the driver's side. As I got back into the car to call my insurance company about a tow, not wanting to risk further damage, my friend told me that when he put the car in Park, the motor just simply cut off. I'm under the impression the car was trying to protect the motor, but that's probably just wishful thinking.

My insurance wants to charge an arm and a leg to have it towed back to my house, so it's been stranded on the side of the road since last night. While waiting on my stepsister to come pick me up, I tried to start the car. It cranked up but then stopped. I decided to put the car in neutral and move it deeper into the old parking lot so it wouldn't be too close to the road.

As my stepsister arrived, her boyfriend and I checked under the hood again. I realized that the antifreeze tank was empty, despite me having filled it to the Max line just three days ago. As he poured water into it, I watched under the car for a leak, and a massive one came directly behind the driver front wheel close to the motor. While he was on the phone with my mom, I tried to find the leak. I found it in the upper radiator hose... It looked like a knife went through it! We had such a hard time getting the hose off because of the damn clamp (especially with it under a block on the motor.) So we had to give up for the night because it was too cold and too dark and too windy to keep going. They took me home.


Today (1/11/24)
Another friend and I went to get a new upper radiator hose from O'Reilly's, drove an hour (we live in Mint Hill) back to the car, and after an hour of struggling, he was able to get the old hose off. He ran to a nearby store to get new clamps since the smaller end of the hose wouldn't stay on the radiator pipe. We got the new hose on.

I went to start the car...

It cranked. But then it died. I tried again, same thing. After the fourth attempt, it even stopped cranking.

We tried jumper cables. We tried switching the fuses around. We even tried disconnecting the battery for a couple of minutes. It cranks up, but it still refuses to start. It's taken a lot of antifreeze too (we filled the tank three times... And it's already almost empty.)

I did check for leaks but there doesn't appear to be any. My battery is fine, it has a little over half a tank of gas, and it even has oil. But it still won't start! Any ideas? My friend used to work on cars in his youth and he says it sounds like it's trying to start, but something, possibly the gas, isn't getting to it. I wonder if it's because it's cold and the motor doesn't realize it has antifreeze now? I don't know. It's my only vehicle and I'm at a loss on what to do.

 

[Handy Andy]

It may mean the head (cylinder head) got warped from overheating caused by there was no antifreeze in it the sudden loss of coolant - so the hose bursting or having something from the fan blades spinning strike it and so it made a gash and all that fluid ran out - may have warped the cylinder head and the crank is simply from the "hydrostatic lock" the new antifreeze is flooding into the gaps left behind from the warping that occurred - and fouling the oil - preventing the starter from tuning over the motor - this usually means a replacement motor - new or used is your choice.