I drive two cars a hyundai elantra and a new rx8. My Hyundai elantra broke down on the the highway last night. The temp gauge needle shot up to the red zone H but no warning lights went off. I had to pull to the side of the road and turn off the engine and noticed a nasty smell (smelled like burnt toast). I also noticed steam coming out of the engine and while i was driving I tried turning on the heater and all i got was cold air . When i pulled over the car wouldn't start up again. The car only has 62k miles on it which i bought used just about a year ago. I had it towed back to the dealership to get it checked and waiting to hear back from them. Did i burn the engine, is the car out of commission for good ? any advice would be great!

Sounds like a bad thermostat, since you didn't get any heat from the heater... I know on most older cars that's a $15 or less part and not too bad to change.... no idea what it's like on these though....

the car should be fine.... good luck!

my 2001 did the same thing at about 40k miles and shot antifreeze everywhere. I took it in and I think they replaced thermostat and temperature sensor under warranty.

were the belts ok ???

Yeah, could be a bad thermostat, and that's what I'd hope for. This happened to my brother's car and unfortunately for him it was the water pump which was more difficult/expensive to replace. But he has a Ford Contour and his car's water pump has plastic fan blades which had completely shattered. Hopefully Hyundai uses better water pumps than that.

As long as the car wasn't overheating for an extended period of time, it should drive fine again once you solve the cooling problem.