Yup, last night. Nasty smell, some wierd hesitation, then WHAM! Sounded like two thousand screaming badgers with steel teeth chewing on the engine. Had it towed to Hendrick last night and the technician said today he's pretty sure it's fried. On the bright side, I'm still under my extended warranty so getting a new engine at 72,000 miles doesn't sound so bad to me. We'll see how it shakes out.

 

Which dealership did it go to?

 

oh, and sorry to hear that it let go.

 

What was the cause or do you know yet?

 

My dear GOD!

You seem to be pretty calm about it. Any more specifics you can share?

So sorry to hear about this.

 

There really isn't much more to tell. I was driving down a town road at about 35 when it happened. Haven't flogged her in a while. When I got to a stop, smoke and a really acrid, burning plastic smell started pouring out. When I looked in you could see that the smoke was coming from around whatever assembly it is on the bottom right of the belt system. There were two wires touching that assembly that were melting, causing the smoke.

My thought is that whatever that this is broke, got really hot, eventually blew apart internally, and ceased spinning, causing the the engine to stop. I guess the tech tried to turn the engine and couldn't so they all started looking up engine part numbers and stuff. They're going to actually start looking at it seriously on Monday. I still think it might not be a blown engine, but they're welcome to replace it if they want.

 

From your description, it sounds like you lost your clutch/bearing on the A/C compressor. It is in that location. Hopefully that's all it is.

Had a friend with an Olds 442 ('69) that had the bearing on the A/C compressor freeze and it locked his engine up completely. It made a heck of a racket and it happened in my driveway. He had just dropped me off from work and it locked up. We took the belt off and he drove it home.