arkitek

alright so I did something crazy stupid a month ago:

So apparently my ac compressor has seized up causing my drive belt to snap. The problem is when it happened I didn't know what I did and drove the car home about 10 miles and during that time it began to overheat. The car drove all the way home without a problem and it's been parked ever since. Well I took it to a mechanic this week to figure how much it would cost to get it all fixed. But I wanted to know if I ruined the car ie head-gasket.

The guy I took it to, Jon Mills Foreign Cars, was like there's no way for me to figure out if your head-gasket or anything else is ruined unless the belt is on. So I called Blue Ridge Mercedes (I'm in Marietta, GA) and the guy there (seems pretty cool) told me that you can run a pressure test on the system to see if the head-gasket is ruined or not. Jon Mills doesn't think that would really tell me anything. Is Jon Mills just trying to get my money?

What do you guys think - can someone explain to me how these systems work and what damage could have been done when driving the car while it was overheating? Is the pressure test going to work? Can I save that old box?

I don't want to pay to have these other parts fixed and then they put coolant in and the car shows it's true colors. ARGH.
D*mn it I need help LOL.

190E 16V

I think Blueridge is right.
Jonathan runs that place and he is a good guy. His shop has a good rep - he's a real MB enthusiast.

Try a different shop near home.

Check for coolant in the oil, yourself. Look for a creamy-coloured deposit on the end of the oil dipstick.

Good luck

Good luck

ptoro01

Fire up the car for short intervals(less than a minute), if it smokes white on start up, thats a sign, keep an eye on coolant too. Repeat that 20 times over the course of a week and you'll draw a conclusion. Oh and run your heater as you only have the small electric water pump to stir coolant around.

arkitek

thanks - i'll probably have it towed to Jonathan next week - but yeah i checked the oil and it was all completely normal but the coolant thing was empty
can i put coolant in it and try to see if it smokes?