Car Overheating After Insurance Claim

jstaples

New Member
Hi everyone, I recently hit a deer, messed up the grille and pushed the radiator and condenser back into the engine a little, but it didnt leak, in fact the AC worked better than it did before...haha.

I called Geico and filed a claim, drove the car around 2-3 days because I needed it for work, never had an issue with it.

Geico finally set me up with a rental car and sent my car to a body repair shop, which gave an estimate of $2k to fix it.

Fast forward 5 days, I get the car back, and on my way to work I happen to look at the temp gauge at a light and its pegged on H. I'm not sure how long it was pegged on H but it only happens when I'm idling, I have a suspicion they forgot to fill up the radiator when they replaced it.

My question is if my engine ends up damaged from overheating like this(my wife picked it up and I doubt she looked at it otherwise she would have stopped and called me, so it might have been overheating on her too and she didn't know it), am I out of luck and have to pay for any future engine damage? Or will it be covered as a mistake on the part of the body shop?

The body shop is coming to get it in the morning where I work to fix it, but the block is aluminum, Id have a hard time imagining it didn't do some form of damage to it.

Thanks for any help/suggestions with this.
 
If you didn't pull over immediately upon seeing it at H to check the water level (after allowing it to cool down) then whatever happens to the engine is on you.

Fortunately, having that happen only at idle, probably means that there was still enough water in the cooling system to avoid harming the engine.

If that ever happens again, get yourself off the road ASAP, let the car cool down and check the coolant level.

If you are stuck in traffic and can't get off the road quickly, turn on the heater for additional circulation, put the car in neutral, and rev up the engine a bit. If the gauge doesn't start coming down a bit, pull off to the shoulder and turn it off or you take a big chance of messing up your engine.

Caution your wife to check the gauges periodically.
 
Thanks for the reply, I pulled off and shut it off for about 10 minutes then went the rest of the way to work(I was only about 2 miles from work, so it was fine the rest of the way there).

I wasn't expecting to go back behind the mechanics to make sure they did their job right, guess I'll do it from now on.

I'm probably just being overly paranoid about it, I just got the car 4 months ago and I can't afford to replace any engine components because a mechanic overlooked something. :1frown:
 
Sounds like you are low on coolant. It can happen even to the pros, sometimes an air pocket can develop in the system and it appears full. Although they should have driven it afterward enough to catch it. Hopefully they will fix you up and everything will be fine.
 
Sounds to me like the cooling fans are not working if it only does it at idle. When you are moving you push enough air through the radiator to keep it cooled down. Could be as simple as the guys at the body shop forgot to plug the fans back after replacing the radiator. The accident could have taken the fans out and the body shop could have missed it. My son had a similar situation. He hit a deer and it damaged the fan and the body shop didn't fix it. It took another shop to find it and get the insurance company to fix it. Either way it is a sign of poor workmanship by the body shop. They should have test driven this vehicle enough to have spotted an issue like this after the repair.
 
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Sounds to me like the cooling fans are working if it only does it at idle. When you are moving you push enough air through the radiator to keep it cooled down. Could be as simple as the guys at the body shop forgot to plug the fans back after replacing the radiator. The accident could have taken the fans out and the body shop could have missed it. My son had a similar situation. He hit a deer and it damaged the fan and the body shop didn't fix it. It took another shop to find it and get the insurance company to fix it. Either way it is a sign of poor workmanship by the body shop. They should have test driven this vehicle enough to have spotted an issue like this after the repair.

So few people truly take pride in their work.

I had a similar situation with a dealership. The vehicle was still under warranty and the AC was basically freezing up on long trips. It would stop blowing cold. I took it to the shop and they said there was no problem with the unit. I got a survey from Chevy, so I filled it out accurately. Next thing I get a call from the service manager. So I take it back in, they let it run for a while and discover that the unit has a slow leak in the coolant. It was fixed and I haven't had an issue since.
 

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