Girlfriend was driving her car a few weeks ago. 2016 cx5 AWD grand touring. 75,000 miles. Her check engine light came on. Went to get it diagnosed at oreilly to pull the codes. P011A-engine coolant temperature sensor 1/2 correlation and also pulled C1031-54 deflation detection system-missing calibration. So she drove home. A few days later she was driving and the check engine light came on and turned red and was blinking and her car lowered her speed limit to 40 mph. I’m assuming this was a caution for engine to shut down so it doesn’t overheat. So she had to stop at a belle tire as she didn’t feel safe driving it anymore. They told her most likely has internal engine damage as the coolant wasn’t being held by the car and it was leaking somehow. We got it to another shop and they diagnosed it with a blown head gasket. Also they said they think this is a ford engine in this car? Is that possible? So we got a quote to replace it. It’s around $2,000. Does this sound right to you guys. Any advice would be helpful thanks.

 

Almost anything is possible, but my question would be why was the engine replaced on a newer, relatively low mileage vehicle. So you want to have that checked and confirmed. And while you're at it, ask them how they diagnosed the blown HG. They should say compression and leak down testing, and provide the results of those tests.

Everything else has gone up in price, so that estimate is probably the going rate for that job these days. However, I recommend getting reliable sounding answers to the above questions, before letting this outfit work on your vehicle.

 

i think what they meant by the engine possibly was that it was a mazda engine made by ford possibly? werent they working together on alot of stuff at that time? 2016? also i think the blown head gasket diagnosis came from it was not holding any coolant. and they said that the coolant or oil was milky. which means that it was mixing at some point.

 

Mazda and Ford had a business agreement for a number of years, but Ford did not build engines for Mazda.

Mixing fluids could be a blown head gasket, and is the most likely suspect. However, it's not the only possibility, which is why I'd do a compression and leak down test, paricularly given that your 2016 is a later model vehicle, with no current history of coolant loss or HG issues. Those tests are reasonably quick and easy to do, and will confirm a blown head gasket (or perhaps confirm it's not the problem). Now if they had a positive block gas test result, or had observed lots of continuous bubbling in the coolant overflow tank, or at the rad cap, I'd agree with that being enough confirmation of a blown HG.