I took my 8 to the dealer this week to get coolant flushed and a brake job. Also had the coolant tank replaced due to the intermittent light issue. On the way home, noticed the same light issue, so I turned around and went back to the dealer. The manager was quite irked (at his techs, not at me) and we made an appointment to bring it in today to get it looked at.

So I'm on my way in (40min drive to the dealer) and I suddenly notice there's no heat coming out of the defog anymore. Hmm. Strange. Cycle temps, cycle AC controls and nothing happens. Then I see my coolant temp idiot gauge pegged to the right and realize that the heater is no longer heating because the heater core has no coolant! S#@&!! Immediately pull over in the next parking lot (couple miles), shut down, and get a tow.

When I popped the hood, there was coolant all over the engine cover and in the heat shielding on the hood. Low coolant light came on right as I turned in the parking lot, but I'm not sure how reliable that is with the previous sensor/electrical issues. Long story short, all the heavies in the service department were clustered around my 8, and they said that one of their techs had likely damaged the radiator on the coolant flush.

Good news out of that is that they owned up and are giving me a rental and a new radiator on their dime. Bad news is I've never overheated a car before. I'm looking for any info anyone has on what else could have been damaged, or should be inspected, from maybe 5 miles of driving with the needle pegged. If they're fixing it, I want it done right. I don't want to run into problems 50K miles down the road due to some ape breaking my radiator.

 

Glad to hear you have an honest dealership even though someone screwed up somewhere.
I'd make sure the service manager makes a note about your car overheating due to negligence on their part somewhere... I say that because the motor itself is very sensitive to overheating. Drive the car immediately afterwards and verify it "feels" as it felt before.

 

Yeah, that's what I was about to add; I know the rotary platform doesn't like overheating at all, but I didn't notice any power loss, lack of responsiveness, or funky engine sounds before I shut it down. Definitely gonna get it in writing before I leave for warranty purposes.

 

my car overheated on a dyno years ago. you shouldn't have any worries after they fix her up.

 

Ask them for a compression check just to make sure. It should be on thier dime since they did the damage. Once the repairs are made make sure you don't leave without the compression test. I would guess if you caught it that quickly you should be ok, but you never know and you should check anyways.

 

I can vouch for our engines not liking to be overheated. I blew a seal on my old RX7 when my radiator went out.
But, yeah, make sure that everything is running at least the same as before you put it in. Take it up to 9k a couple of times while driving. Make sure that you still have good power. And, try to make them do a compression check on it as well, if they don't do one.

 

overheating is not cool thing to happen on any kinds of engine. Rotary is more "sensitive" to this because if you've seen how "Thin" the coolant seal is in person. you will know.

it really depends how bad it was. you could be fine and your engine might survive.

but honestly I would make them put a note on the service record just like what Alz0rz said.