Radiator failure on road trip

[Heykoj]

hello, I'm new to this forum with this question, long time participant of many forums for other cars however my Infiniti history of a 2005 fx35 and my current 2010 ex35 has never required anything beyond regular maintenance.

My question is, my wife and mother in law are on a road trip and just experienced the following. On the highway driving with the cruise control they heard a bang, the cruise control disengaged and the engine was losing power. Upon pulling off they say smoke or steam escape from under the hood and the temp gauge was pegged to high. They called a tow truck who thankfully realizing it was AWD put dollies under the rear wheels and the hook on the front. apparently the dollie(s) failed and the tow truck driver noticed from the squealing tires during the tow, not sure if my car was dragging or the dollies.

Had it towed to a dealer and they say there is a golf ball sized hole in the rad, and I have a quote for $1500 to replace the rad and thermostat. As the car is 500 km away I'm at the mercy of someone else working on my car. Searching thru the forum this seems to be close to the typical dealer cost for these items.

Is there anything I should look for relative to the tow that may have been dragging my car? Will the engine management shut the engine down before it catastrophically overheats? I'm hoping that the engine was losing power in a controlled manner as opposed to circling the drain to failure.

[XIS]

Just wanted to say good luck! The radiator replacement should fix your issue and hopefully it wasn't driven too long with the heat pegged high.

[sev]

hmmm the key to it here is how long did the car stay on while it was without coolant. The longer the more chance of damage. I would be concerned about head gasket issues or warped heads if they were overheated for anyhting more than a few minutes.

I would ask the dealer about this, or see if they can do a leakdown test to see if there is any damage to the heads or head gaskets.