Wife Overheated The Engine

[Robb23501]

Hey guys, first post on the forum.

My wife drives a 2012 Civic EX, and she got herself into a fender bender the other day. She rear ended a truck at low speed at a stop light (airbags did not deploy).

The truck had a trailer hitch which punctured the radiator and dumped all the coolant. My wife pulled over into a parking lot and left the engine running for probably 10 minutes or so until I got there. Realizing that the radiator was busted, I immediately took a look at the dash and saw that the overheating light was on. I stopped the motor right away, but after idling for 10 minutes or more, I fear the head gasket might be shot, the cylinder heads warped, or some other permanent damage.

Right now the car is at the body shop being repaired. Not sure if these auto body places have the capability of checking for engine damage or fixing it.

I am mechanically inclined. I can fix most things as long as I watch enough YouTube videos. What steps should I be taking to see what sort of damage was done to the engine?

 

[webby]

Probably the easiest thing would be to let the car idle when you get it back and let it run for a bit to see if the temps increase. It's probably the only thing you could really do without removing the head to have it checked.

 

[Flightmaster127]

I would do what webby said. It really depends on how hot the engine got as to wether or not anything may have been damaged.

 

[Darkout]

The easiest and quickest way is to let it run and get to operating temps and see if anything is showing signs of issues like the others have said. If you want to get technical you could rent a cylinder leakdown gauge from a parts store and know for certain how much leak each cylinder has and where it's coming from IE. head gasket, intake/exhaust valves, rings. This requires removal of spark plugs, knowing how to get each cylinder to top dead center on the compression stroke and an air compressor to use the leak down gauge. Late response so you may be far down this road already but you can determine which part of the combustion chamber may be failing.