Within four miles of leaving work yesterday, the "Engine Overheating" warning display came on in. The temperature gauge showed 260 degrees. I pulled over and let the engine idle and it quickly cooled to about 220 degrees. I opened the hood and the coolant reservoir cap was gone and coolant had blown out the top of the reservoir tank. The cap either was left off from servicing weeks ago or was loose and somehow came off. There was no damage to indicate that it had blown off. The reservoir was empty of coolant. The temperature gauge remained at 220 degrees however the heater was not blowing warm air indicating that the coolant level was low in the engine. There has been no indication of coolant leakage, overflow, or consumption ever for this truck with 172,000 miles.
I added 1 gallon to the reservoir to bring it up to the normal level and replaced the cap. I drove home with no problems.
Was this problem due to the cap being gone or is there a deeper root cause that needs to be addressed?
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