Q: Car overheating and stopped

asked by on June 29, 2017

My 2004 Lexus ES 330 had been smoking under hood, when I'm in idle, temp gauge usually rises up until I move again. But today my temp gauge elevated while driving to work this morning and quickly went back down to mid mark. However my car was smoking badly under hood and before I got to work it cut off on me completely with a knocking sound right before it shut off. When I raised hood the cap on over flow pan was melted and was a little and was off causing coolant to be everywhere. Someone helped me move car out way of traffic. What can this be cause by?

My car has 200000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.

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