Can you drive with a cracked head gasket? Everything You Need to Know

Most of the time, trouble with your vehicle’s head gasket starts out as a small crack before it is fully blown. Overtime, those cracks will widen if they aren’t dealt with properly, leading to further damage and pricier repairs.That’s why you should never drive with a cracked head gasket! If you’re worried asking yourself, “Can you drive with a cracked head gasket?” you’ve come to the right place! Continue reading our guide below for more information about diagnosing a cracked head gasket and sealing your leak! If you’ve already diagnosed your cracked head gasket and are worried (rightly so) that it will lead to more problems, use BlueDevil Pour N’ Go Head Gasket Sealer to seal your leak fast! Get our sealant now, and get back on the road tomorrow!

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Can You Drive With a Cracked Head Gasket?

Symptoms of a Cracked Gasket

How can you tell if you have a blown head gasket or a cracked head gasket? Before you can understand how to fix your problem, you have to make sure that you’ve diagnosed it correctly. A cracked or blown head gasket will demonstrate one if not all of these issues:

Overheating Engine
Low Coolant Levels
White Smoke
Oil and Antifreeze Mixture

Is it Safe to Drive?

To understand why it’s a bad idea to drive with a cracked or blown head gasket, you need to understand what is actually going on in your motor. The head gasket in your car is sandwiched in between your engine’s block and the cylinder head, forming part of the combustion chamber. Its job is to keep compressed air and fuel inside the cylinder so it can be ignited and turned into energy. It also keeps coolant and oil out of the combustion chamber, so they don’t foul the ignition process or cause your vehicle to lose fluids.

When your head gasket is blown, it allows one or more of these fluids or gases to get to a place they shouldn’t be. A blown head gasket can allow combustion gases to get into your coolant, engine coolant to get into the combustion space or your oil. It may also let engine oil get in all of these places as well. The danger of driving with a blown head gasket is really the danger of driving with your engine’s fluids and gases in the wrong places.

What Happens If You Drive With a Cracked Gasket?

Allowing coolant into the combustion space can cause lots of problems. First, it can foul spark plugs and make your engine run poorly due to the deposits left by burning coolant. Next, coolant in the combustion chamber can change air fuel ratios and cause damage to sensors. Lastly, and possibly most hazardous to your engine, having coolant in the combustion chamber can cause rusting of the piston, piston ring, and cylinder wall. As a result, you may experience lower compression that requires a complete engine rebuild.

Additionally, you could end up with coolant in your engine oil. Coolant in your engine oil causes major problems as it significantly reduces your engine oil’s ability to lubricate important components of your engine, like your cam shaft or crank bearings. This lack of adequate lubrication can quickly lead to bearing damage, again requiring an engine rebuild.

Allowing engine oil to leak anywhere can quickly lower engine oil levels which will also reduce lubrication in your engine and cause the same damage to bearings and camshafts. Lastly, allowing gases to leak out of your combustion chamber can cause abnormally high pressures in your cooling system and problems in the metal around the leak. Leaking coolant and combustion gases can cause high temperature gradients leading to erosion of the leak area and possible cracking.

The Verdict: Can You Drive With a Cracked Head Gasket?

For all these reasons, we don’t recommend driving with a blown head gasket. The good news is there is a quick and easy way to seal your blown head gasket, prevent future leaks, and keep your car on the road. BlueDevil Pour-N-Go Head Gasket Sealer is a specially formulated sealing agent you can add to your vehicle’s radiator that will seal a head gasket leak as you drive. BlueDevil Pour-N-Go doesn’t take any tools to install and will quickly and easily seal your head gasket leak.

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