Head Gasket Failure? Need advice!
 

Hi Gang,

Not sure what, but something really bad went wrong with our Mazda3 today.

We had just loaded up to go to a B-Day party and were going up a moderately steep hill about one block from our place, and there was a popping sound. The car seemed to lose some power and when I looked in the rear view mirror there was a lot a white/slightly grey smoke behind us.

I immediately pulled over and turned off the car. Nothing out of the ordinary was visible inside the engine compartment; so, I turned the car back on, and immediately drove it home, parked, and turned it off.

Testing again later today, the car produced lots of smoke after about 30 seconds of running. I’ve decided I won’t run it further and need to get it towed to a shop.

So, any ideas of what might be wrong with it?

I’m guessing a blown head gasket or a blown ring, but I’ve never experienced or seen either one; so, I could be completely wrong.

Here’s the worst, we are just 3K miles over power train warranty. If it is a head gasket that sort of failure should not happen with only 63K miles. It seems like Mazda should cover this. Any recommendations for getting that to happen?

I need ideas and suggestions! Thanks!

Update
 

Update

The dealership tells me it's not the head gasket. Instead they say that there was too much oil in the engine and that caused the engine to smoke.

To be sure the head gasket was not damaged, I asked them to perform a compression test and to pressure test the coolant and oil systems. Apparently all three checked out ok.