Well my car overheated. The temperature gauge reached the red zone and at that point I pulled the car over, and the engine was spewing coolant out of the fill reservoir. The engine was running in the red zone for probably 3 minutes, as I was at a stoplight, but I pulled it over as soon as possible and shut it off. I drove the car home the next day, (I added some water before this) but it was a short drive and the temperature was fine.

So yesterday, we drained the oil and it looked okay. There was a small hint of moisture in the oil, as it looked a tiny bit milky, but the oil was somewhat old so I am thinking it was moisture from the atmosphere or something????

Anyway, I guess my question is what would it take for a headgasket to fail? The car has a touch over 100k miles, and it has been pretty well maintained.

 

Sorry man but it impossible to tell. The only way to be sure is to send out an oil sample. Some people overheat a few times and don't have any problems, some people never overheat and have a blown headgasket.

 

Hmm...what kind of places do that? I assume it is a specialty business that tests oil samples.

 

I had a clogged catalytic converter and it started overheating. I had to get somewhere that day and tried to limp it home until if finally shut down (overheated). I gutted the converter and got it running again and it was fine, but then my dad drove it after it sat for a few weeks and it blew the head gasket (don't know if it warped anything yet). Has 176k miles without the valve covers ever being off.