Blown head gasket? Or just tear in upper radiator hose?

Alright. So I bought a used 1999 Honda Accord on August 21st for about 5 grand. After I bought it, I drove down to Jacksonville from Norfolk Virginia, which is around 600 miles and a 10 hour drive. Right before I arrived at my friend s place in Jacksonville, smoke poured out from under the hood so I pulled over into a parking lot. I checked and noticed a tear in the upper radiator hose. So the next day I went with my friend to buy a new hose and some coolant. Then I took the car to a mechanic to replace the hose. When he took the old hose off, he said that it looked like I had blown a head gasket and that there was no reason to replace the hose because it wouldn t fix anything. So I had to leave my car at my friends and fly back to Norfolk to be at work on the 23rd. Anyway, my question is, should I assume that the mechanic was correct in his diagnosis, or should I replace the hose and see if that was the only problem?

I would replace the hose refill with coolant and run the car to see what happens. Do I trust mechanics? No I don't.

Thers really no way to determine an head gasket is blown until you get it running again with coolant in the engine. I think your mechanic screwed you.

It doesn't appear he took enough steps to determine you need a new head gasket. What did he do other than look under the hood at the hose?

I agree with the others. Replacing the hose is the first step, then it is possible to see if the head gasket is good.

Once the hose is replaced and the coolant refilled, you can do a basic test on the head gasket yourself. Take off the radiator cap, clamp closed the hose from the radiator neck to the reservoir, start the engine and place the palm of your hand over the radiator neck where the cap was. If you feel steadily rising pressure within five seconds (or worse, pulsations) the head gasket is probably bad. If not, you can be sure the head gasket is okay.

Its a reasonable diagnosis, as a blown upper radiator hose can be a good indication of a blown head gasket, reason being is your cooling system operates at 8 to 13 Lbs. Psi, now if you introduce say around 130 Lbs. Cylinder compression to the coolant system via the blown head gasket, the excess pressure finds the weak point, and in this case was the radiator hose, Had you done routine maintenance and replaced the radiator cap the pressure would have been released there, But experience has shown me most people never remove the cap let alone replace it, they just look at the recovery bottle and assume the coolant system is operating correctly, However in this case it was securely rotted and stuck in place and completely non operational, Thus blown radiator hose, In any case I'd replace the hose and fill with water as it will be cheaper than antifreeze at this stage of the game, If it doesn't overheat and drives OK then flush the system and add the correct coolant,
But then again I'm just a mechanic in the Public sector, So what do you suppose the chances are of that cop car behind you breaking down? I know you may have wished it would at some point, But it aint likely brother

Thank yall for all the answers and input. I really appreciate it I don't know much about cars. So I think that I will replace the hose and refill the coolant first before I assume its a blown head gasket. Only problem is that now I'm in Virginia, and my car is in Jacksonville. So I have to decide whether to spend $400 to ship it up to Norfolk, or get my friend to run it to a mechanic to try and fix it, and then fly down there and drive it back.
Personal problem.
(The mechanic said he thought it was a blown gasket because, 1) the coolant that had leaked had black spots in it, which he said was motor oil getting into the radiator. 2) when he took off the old, torn hose, it started foaming a lot.)
Again thanks for the help everybody.

If your upper radiator hose has a tear in it, coolant will leak out. If the tear is large, it will leak profusely. You want to replace that hose right away, and add coolant and purge any air out of the cooling system. Only then will you have any idea that your head gasket has failed.

Just from what you write, it sounds like the mechanic is trying to get something to do, at your expense. Now that you have left the care in his "care", he might overheat it good, so that you actually DO have a head gasket problem.

If you drove with low coolant and an overheat condition for a long time, then maybe you did overheat your engine enough to warp the aluminum cylinder head and make the head gasket fail.

Overheating and engine oil pressure problems, need to have the car off the road and shut off immediately, and not driven until the problem is corrected. It's not ok to drive a car in an overheated condition, otherwise sure damage will result soon.