Drove Honda civic 2001 without coolant for a few minutes. Potential damages?
I was driving about an hour with the ac and noticed a rise in the thermostat but it went back down a few times. At one point it got to the danger zone but went down quickly. There I knew there was a problem. Again it went to the danger zone so I decided to stop but I waited for an exit; I would say I drove 1 maybe 1.5 miles before I took the exit on the freeway. The car had burned through the coolant and was making a bad noise where the reserve coolant tank is and shaking it slightly. I filled it with water and drove back, which was about 95 miles to get home and it went fine. I'm gonna get it checked before replacing with 50/50 coolant.
I'm worried that extra driving caused something serious. Yes I'm an idiot for not stopping immediately, I'm a young driver. Again, the car drove perfectly fine after filling with water for 95 miles.
The waterpump could have been damaged from dirving without coolant liquid but it (apparently) isn't damaged, because when water was filled in, then the tempereture went down and stayed normal while driving.It could be that the waterpump is more than normal worn out because of running without coolant liquid, the waterpump would then damage sooner and need a replacement sooner but for now its not damaged as tempretures stay all normal.
If the engine was shaking and running badly, it likely IS damaged. If when you added water to the hot engine, you turned off the engine, that quench very likely warped or cracked the cylinder head. You'll find out when the diagnosis is done. Be sure to tell the mechanic the whole story. If the engine had NO coolant, there would have been no temporary temp drop and rise. It would have gone up and stayed up. If everything is OK, it's a miracle, but i hope so.
Time will tell if you ruined the head gasket.
Consider yourself lucky, of all cars to let get hot a civic is one that you shouldn't!
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