Camry won't start

[NotMrWizard]

My wife had our 2001 Camry over the weekend (2.2L), and it quit running on her during a road trip. I was out of town also, so everything here is what I was told over the phone. She got it to a shop, and it apparently was out of coolant (reserve reservoir was also empty), and low on oil. They filled it with coolant, added some oil, and it started fine.

She drove it home (about 100 miles), and I told her to keep an eye on the temp gauge. She said it never overheated or got hot on the way home. It seemed to be running fine yesterday when she got home, nothing I could see out of the ordinary. No white smoke out of the exhaust.

This morning, I can't start it. It seems like it has a leak somewhere near the radiator, as the shroud is wet. But the radiator is full. Oil level is fine. When I do try and start it, you can hear the coolant bubbling in the overflow reservoir. I did get it started after leaving it sit for an hour, it ran fine about 5 seconds, then started running very rough and cut out.

Anything obvious I might want to start with? I'm thinking that if she overheated it, she may have cracked the head. But there's no white smoke of any kind out the exhaust.

Thanks!

ETA: The car has about 210,000 miles on it (had it since new), and this is the first trouble at all I've had with it.

[toyomoho]

If the engine was overheated it is possible a lot of oil (over a quart) could also have been burned quickly due to the hot engine.

The upper and lower radiator tanks are plastic. The upper one tends to crack and leak, often very slowly at first. Remember when the coolant is hot, the system is under pressure and will leak more.

If bubbles in coolant auto parts stores sell a kit to test the coolant for exhaust gases (about $40). If the bubbles are exhaust gases, the material in the kit will change color.

There are other methods such as checking cylinder compression or leak down and coolant system pressure test.

Steam out the exhaust is not always going to occur with a head or head gasket problem.

Pull the plugs and look for one or two plug electrodes that appear to have been steamed cleaned due to water vapor.

Does the engine crank over OK, as in smoothly, one or two cylinders appearing to be flat on compression, etc.

[NotMrWizard]

Well, got it started. Got it to where it was chugging and lugging, and just kept about half-throttle. Finally after about 15 seconds, it took off. Took it to the dealer, bad head gasket (which I had my suspicions) and/or bad head. If just the head gasket, $1,360 ($1,021 which is labor). If the head is cracked, tack on another $800 for worst-case. Does this sound right? Seems a bit high for me. But I also don't have the time right now to do it myself.

The compression test returned 170-185 on all 4 cylinders. I asked if at least one of these would have been much lower if the head gasket was bad, but they said the comp test is more of a check on the lower end. Does that sound right? He said after shutting the car off, and letting it cool for a few minutes, the upper radiator hose was rock hard, which I noticed yesterday and thought was odd.

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't complain too much. This is the very first malfunction on the car, other than normal service stuff like plugs and filters. I just did the brakes at 190k (first brake job, and they still had life left), and still has the original clutch, so I don't have much to complain about.