E32094 Engine overheated and gasket gave up
 

Recently my car overheated due to blown radiator hose. The car stopped on the highway. I had it towed to home. Ordered hose and filled with new coolant. Now the car has a rough idle. Further inspection I had the engine gasket failure. The coolant mixed with engine oil and white smoke coming out on he exhaust. My question now is this economical to repair or still repairable? Shall I send this car for retirement? I need help and advice

You could repair the head gasket and get another 100,000 miles out of the car, as yours is still pretty young with only 122,000. It all depends on the condition of everything else. If it were me, and the body, interior, trans, etc. were in decent shape, I'd do it myself.

Thanks for the reply.
Do you think it's the head gasket that got damaged. I did had the valve job eight years ago. So I know how to replace the head gasket. The car has a rough idling after the incident. The car look good in and out. I just don't want to spend another 3 to 5 thousand dollars on repair. The car has 203,000 miles on it. Last year I had the transmission rebuilt. Nothing major problem except the blown gasket bacause the top radiator hose gave up. My daughter drove the car even the trouble light on the dashboard came on.

I don't know if you need a new head or not, but a head gasket replacement at a good Mercedes independent in Southern California would cost you around $1,200.00.

Do you think its just a blown gasket nothing major inside the engine?

Your symptoms are peculiar for an M104 engine...usually the headgasket failure does nothing more than leak copious amounts of oil and see higher than average temps when sitting at idle. Rough idle? Hmmmm...the oil and coolant mix is usually an M103 gasket failure signature.

I asked my friend who is a mechanic he said the rough idle was caused by the mixture of oil and coolant that enter the spark plug chamber. When I pressed on the accelerator the rough rpm goes away. I hope its just the head gasket.