Ever been towed?

[kphoger]

Second time was after getting T-boned when the other driver failed to stop for a red light.  Totaled car.  What would be described as "minor injuries" but are a couple of years of pain, twice-weekly PT appointments and bizarre side effects of nerve medications.

I was on the other end of a T-bone accident a couple of years ago.  I missed a red light and T-boned a 2002 Honda Accord with my 2007 Nissan Pathfinder.  My car ended up being totaled out too, but at least I was able to drive away after simply tying the hood down to the grill.  The Honda, not so much.

[J N Winkler]

To answer the question in the OP:  I have never been towed for illegal parking, but in the summer of 2016 I had to have my roadtrip vehicle towed after a deer collision took out the front bumper cover, A/C condenser, radiator, and sundry other parts.  I was about a mile or so north of the Matfield Green service area on the Kansas Turnpike, so I limped to the service area, determined the cooling system was leaking (blood-red liquid on the concrete), and used a cell phone to arrange for towing and other transportation home.

The second was when our car overheated in the middle of nowhere western Colorado last summer.  Between Naturita and Uravan, for those familiar with the area.  100° sun, and near-zero cell phone reception.  A couple of guys in a logging truck stopped and determined the radiator had run completely dry.  I had about 12 gallons of drinking water in the car, so we filled her up.  After proceeding to Gateway and then heading west up to the top of John Brown Canyon, we realized we were still losing steam out the top, so we put more water in and drove with the heater on full blast to a mechanic in Grand Junction.

The most recent one was just last week, and it's probably related to the Colorado episode.  On Monday of last week, the car started to overheat again, and I barely made it drop my son off at his piano lesson.  Had to put the heater on full blast to avoid pinning the needle at H.  Found out I had a major coolant leak.  It's a 13 mile drive from home to piano, and I'd lost about 2½ to 3 gallons of coolant.  The radiator had ruptured, likely because I had put a lot of stress on it by driving in the mountains of Colorado in the summer with no pressure and overweight cargo.  A friend brought some water out to me, I filled up the radiator, and then I limped to my mechanic–barely made it there, as it was starting to overheat again.  My mechanic quoted me too high of a price the next day, so I then drove it to my friend's mechanic instead.  It's a good thing the stoplights were all green, or else I probably would have pinned it to H.  After that mechanic replaced the radiator, I discovered that coolant had gotten onto the serpentine belt during my driving all over town with a blown radiator, so I had to replace the belt and clean the pulleys the following day.

Depending on the mileage of your vehicle, the radiator might simply have reached the end of its natural life.  Copper-brass radiators last essentially forever if properly maintained, but aluminum radiators are living on borrowed time once they reach 100,000 miles, which is also the expected service life of water pumps.  In my Saturn, which received indifferent cooling system maintenance for most of its life, the original radiator failed at 18 years/125,000 miles (evident as the engine seeming to "eat" coolant since there was no visible drip) and the original water pump died at 20 years/129,000 miles (visible as a driveway drip).

Driving without a pressure cap and replacing missing coolant with straight water likely did your water jacket and cylinder head gasket no favors.  Antifreeze and premixed coolants contain additives that are designed to help prevent the formation of steam pockets that collapse with enough force to pit the water jacket.

My suggestion would be to keep premixed coolant on hand and to check under the hood frequently to maximize your chances of catching cooling system failures before they progress beyond the drip stage.  Since the cooling system has had straight water added to it, it would also be a good idea to ensure that the coolant has adequate antifreeze content.  Your vehicle is new enough to have had a super long-life coolant as OE provision and these are more likely to be sold as premixes rather than straight antifreeze (Toyota's SLLC, for example, is available only as a premix).  Pretty much all cooling systems hold on to a quart or so when drained, so unless the coolant added back in has been enriched with pure antifreeze to compensate for dilution, the mixture will be weaker than the specified 50% floor and boilover protection will accordingly be less.

[kphoger]

Depending on the mileage of your vehicle,

Just crossed over 184,000 miles.

the radiator might simply have reached the end of its natural life.  Copper-brass radiators last essentially forever if properly maintained, but aluminum radiators are living on borrowed time once they reach 100,000 miles,

Bought it used a couple of years ago, so I don't know if it's the original rad or not.

Driving without a pressure cap and replacing missing coolant with straight water likely did your water jacket and cylinder head gasket no favors.  Antifreeze and premixed coolants contain additives that are designed to help prevent the formation of steam pockets that collapse with enough force to pit the water jacket.

My suggestion would be to keep premixed coolant on hand and to check under the hood frequently to maximize your chances of catching cooling system failures before they progress beyond the drip stage.  Since the cooling system has had straight water added to it, it would also be a good idea to ensure that the coolant has adequate antifreeze content.  Your vehicle is new enough to have had a super long-life coolant as OE provision and these are more likely to be sold as premixes rather than straight antifreeze (Toyota's SLLC, for example, is available only as a premix).  Pretty much all cooling systems hold on to a quart or so when drained, so unless the coolant added back in has been enriched with pure antifreeze to compensate for dilution, the mixture will be weaker than the specified 50% floor and boilover protection will accordingly be less.

I've only put straight water in as a stop-gap measure to get me to a mechanic.  I've never driven more than probably 120 miles at a time with straight water.

[roadman]

Nope, I was booted for parking in a reserved space once.

Thus preventing whomever the space was reserved for from using it.