Wife was driving last night alone when she heard a strange noise from under the hood, within seconds it started skipping and by the time she found a safe place to pull over, the engine died as she came to a stop. The plastic tee that has the two main coolant hoses and the radiator cap attached broke and one of the radiator hoses completely separated from it. Of course that caused an immediate overheating that done major damage within seconds. She said it never read hot on the gauge and had no warning lights or bells. I attached a pic of the broken tee.
I had it towed home this morning - it obviously had low compression when I tried to start, so I checked it - 15, 0, 0, and 30 psi. Engine is toast.
I included pics of the spark plug boots where two of them had part of the plastic sleeve they fit in melted to them and all were cracked. That sucker got HOT. No evidence that the radiator cap ever released any coolant into the reservoir, as it is at the same level as it usually is and reservoir cap is intact.
Appears as though the plastic tee just gave up the ghost under normal operating conditions and now I have a destroyed engine. I have no doubt the head is toast, but do you guys think there is a chance that the block and lower end may be salvageable?
2013 Journey SE, only 99k miles, well maintained, never had any real issues except heater hose tee cracked and I replaced both with brass tees several months ago..