My wife drives a '92 Mercury Sable LS. 100,000 miles. VG Condition
Last week she was in an accident. A Honda Civic pulled out in front of her from an alley without stopping and my wife collided into the side of the offending vehicle. The side of the Civic was quite heavily damaged, but there was surprisingly little damage to my wife's car. The air bag did not go off. The front bumper was severely scratched and gouged, the licence plate was torn off, and the headlight assembly on one side was knocked loose. No big deal, maybe $500-$1000 damage.
The Sable seemed quite drivable although there was a little left pull in the steering (alignment?). Anyway, the next day I went to test drive the car and I noticed the heater wasn't working (blowing cold)...it had always worked fine before. I thought perhaps I had a rad leak. I checked and sure enough I was low on coolant. I filled it with water and the heater started working again. I drove around for a bit and then inspected the cooling system and couldn't find any obvious leaks. Everything seemed back to normal. A couple of days later the car starts to overheat. I pull over immediately and once it cools a bit I check the rad and it's low again. I refilled with water and it ran home ok, but I still didn't see any leak. I figured it for a slow leak and scheduled a repair ( for tomorrow) Today my wife called on the way home from work...the car is idling very rough. Then she calls again 10 minutes later...the car is overheating again. She pulled over immediately and waited for me. Again I see the coolant is low, but this time I check the oil and it looks like I have contaminated oil.
So I am concluding I have either a blown head gasket or a cracked block? Is this correct? Can a fairly minor front end collision cause something like this? If it is a serious engine problem I am anticipating a lot of grief from the insurance company (considering the muffler broke right off in the accident as well and they even gave me a hard time about that) Any advice appreciated. TIA