Frozen Car

Gloomendoom

Looking on the bright side, I successfully thawed out a frozen engine and it ran fine afterwards (not my car.)

I did have to put the car in a garage and cover the bonnet in old duvets. It took about eight hours with a fan heater to melt all the ice.

hartcjhart

get it to a garage and let them deal with it,as it has frozen it may have pushed a 'sacrificial' core plug out which may or may not be visible to the untrained eye

Alfrescodave

Do you still have the paperwork from the recent service ? There's usually a tick box form which might indicate whether or not coolant was checked - also any itemised costs on the bill would show if antifreeze was added

Inactive

hartcjhart wrote: »

get it to a garage and let them deal with it,as it has frozen it may have pushed a 'sacrificial' core plug out which may or may not be visible to the untrained eye

Good point, good advice.;)

Strider590

^^ Not sure that's much use...... Can you see the trainee mechanic actually saying "yeah i didn't put any anti-freeze in, so I won't tick this little box that says I did"? never gonna happen

SailorSam

If you can i think taking the bottom hose off may stop it getting any worse tonight, and throw an old blanket over the engine.

Strider590

^^ We're not 100% sure that it's coolant has frozen yet, OP hasn't checked. But some urgency is required.

hubert_cumberdale

i have had a bout 4 cars freeze and only one broke. The block split right down the middle quite amazing really the power of mother nature.

You can always stick a little gas lamp under it at night one of the latern type ones with a blue gas canister as these have a nice shroud on them and dont burn to hot.

a tea tray with a load of tea lights on would work to slid under there but again only do it if your sure theres no petrol leaks. They used to do this up in scotland and yorkshire in the dirtiest of winters

esmerobbo

mikey72 wrote: »

Might be ok, but what car is it?
When it didn't start, did it turn over, or was there nothing.
The water pump is driven by the cam belt, it's possible that if the pump is frozen, it won't turn, the starter may turn the crankshaft, and strip the cam belt.
Get the garage to trailer it away and defrost it and check it over if that's the case.
Don't try to turn it over again though.

Good advice if the pump is frozen solid you could well strip the cam belt. The Pug is an interference engine too so you don't want to do that.
Thats assuming it hasnt already.:(

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

It could be the end of the engine, as has been previously mentioned freezing water will split the head and the block. We are only a few days into the freeze and it may be that the engine has not totally frozen, but it will be soon if not got to the garage and thawed out..

Freezing water may split the engine, but it isn't a certainty.