Oldsmobile Intrigue Engine Blown

Question:
1997 Oldsmobile Intrique. We had the engine replaced with a rebuilt engine about 30 days ago and last week the engine overheated and died and they are now they are telling us the motor is shot and we will need another one. This is my daughters car and I had driven in it just a week ago and it was fine, was not overheating.

They said there was muddy water in it - we had not added any water and they said the radiator had a leak and caused the engine to overheat and ruin the motor - is this possible?Before the car died it had been driven about 15 miles on the highway and when she got off the highway it was not showing the engine was hot but then the car died.

We are going by the mechanics tomorrow to see what they are going to do but I wanted to check with someone to see if this is possible that the car can overheat one time and the engine be shot - someone else told us the sludge in the radiator could have been caused by them not properly flushing out the radiator when the engine was rebuilt.

They also said they put some little aluminum heat sensors on the engine and it was melted off and that is how they can tell the engine overheated -Thanks.

Answer:
There are pellets that are used in diagnosis of a sticking t-stat. Maybe that is what they did. If they put it on your engine before giving it back to you after the rebuild, sounds odd to me. Yes, overheating 1 time can cause an engine to fail.

It depends on how bad the engine overheated and for how long. That could have caused something in the engine to warp or even caused a gasket to weaken. A weak gasket may not even show for some time, or it can cause a leak right a way. I would definitely take it back to the shop and have them check it out again and pay for any damage.

In my opinion a good repair shop what have checked for the reason the engine blew the first time, and that includes a plugged radiator. Normally a rebuilt/used engine will have some kind of warranty behind it as long as the shop that installed it followed the engine suppliers check list that usually comes with an engine.

If the shop just rebuilt your original engine, then all other components should have been checked out before giving you the car back so as to make sure this would not happen.

Maybe this was the reason for the original failure and was not corrected, which in turn blew the rebuild. Hope this was helpful.