Radiator blew out

Last night on the way home from work. Had to be towed to dealer. A little over $400 parts and labor. Leaked at the top, he said. Is this unusual? First time my '96 left me stranded. Of course, it's never been 10 years old before, either.

Reply to
Frank Berger
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Not really. Heat and age degrade the plastic top tank; when it turns olive green, its days are numbered. I replaced mine preemptively with a $130 all-metal radiator for an automatic Miata, with about twice the capacity. Not a difficult job, just tedious and hard on the back.

Reply to
Lanny Chambers
Reply to
Christopher Muto

Lanny Chambers wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com:

Do you remember how long it took to change it out? I've got all the parts (including the related hoses etc) in the garage, just haven't found a good time to do it yet.

-Scott

Reply to
Scott Hughes

Part of the answer depends on whether your car has the plastic undercarriage shield. Removing that part adds some time to the process if it is installed.

On my car, without needing to remove this shield, I can swap the radiator in about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This includes gathering the tools, draining the antifreeze and filling it back up.

Like Lanny said, it is mostly tedious, swapping the fans back and forth and dealing with the hoses. If the hoses are old, they can be hard to get off. I cut them and then use vice-grips to twist them back and forth until they come free. Of course, you only need to remove one end of the hose when doing a radiator swap, so that helps time-wise.

A set of Rhino ramps and a good crawler can make that hurting back that Lanny mentioned a non-factor as well.

Pat

Reply to
pws

About an hour. The worst part was loosening the bolts obstructed by the power steering cooler--very cramped, and blind. Bending over the nose is what caused the backache--if you have access to a lift, you would be better off removing the undertray (which I didn't do) and working from below. I didn't need to replace any hoses, just drain the system, remove the fans, and swap the radiator.

It may be possible to remove the radiator and fans as a unit, I dunno.

Reply to
Lanny Chambers

Ahh, I can see how bending over the thing and dealing with the fans while they are on the car would not be fun.

I don't remember any bolts that were hard to see or to get to, and I have removed three miata radiators in the last year. There are two bolts to secure the radiator that are easy to access, then the radiator and fans just lift out as one unit after disconnecting the hoses and the fan electrical connections. It is a tight fit, but it comes out easily enough.

I can't see trying to deal with the fans any other way than with the radiator off of the car. You are going from a nightmare job to a very easy task of sitting over the radiator on a bench with a socket wrench and all the room you could ever need to remove and install the fans.

Pat

Reply to
pws

Just heard from the dealer. After replacing the radiator and repressurizing the system, the water pump is leaking. When I complained that I asked about replacing the WP a year ago when my timing belt was done, they said it wasn't leaking and they didn't recommend it. His response was that probably the car overheating yesterday blew the WP seal and a new WP would have blown also. I'm inclined to agree, since I had been looking for signs of the WP leaking for a while and found none. Oh, I need front and rear brakes also. Big $$$.

Reply to
Frank Berger

How many miles are you at? I would be highly suspicious of their water pump story. 6+ years of reading this newsgroup and I have never heard of a radiator blowout or car overheating to cause the water pump alone to fail. If the temperatures got that high for that long, you would probably be looking at engine damage as well, unless possibly the pump was getting ready to go anyway.

It could be coincidence, a very small water pump leak that can't be seen yet, or a flat-out lie by the dealership. What you are going through is how big dealerships make most of their money. Selling cars doesn't bring in nearly as much money as overcharging customers for factory parts and charging 2 book hours for a 45 minute job.

Also, by front and rear brakes, do you mean pads, rotors, calipers, master cylinder, etc.? If it were my car, I would get that miata to another mechanic for a 2nd opinion.

You can save quite a bit with things like remanufactured calipers, pads & rotors from Trussville, and even a halfway decent shade tree mechanic can do a safe and good brake job. It is incredibly easy to do.

If you have the money, however, there is no question that it is easier just to have it towed to the dealer and to (hopefully) have it work afterwards.

Pat

Reply to
pws

91K. I do not suspect my dealer of cheating me. I think independent operators are more likely to cheat and to be incompetent. That is why the dealerships get away with charging more money. I have had three instances of clear-cut crookedness over the years. All 3 were gas stations.
Reply to
Frank Berger

Yeah, well...I obviously followed the wrong set of directions.

Reply to
Lanny Chambers

I doubt that, but a year is plenty of time for a water pump to get a year older and start leaking regardless. My original water pump lasted

114k, no overheating.
Reply to
Lanny Chambers

I am not saying that all dealerships are crooked, there are probably 1% to 2% that are actually honest. If you have found one of those rare places, then more power to ya.

Taking a car to a gas station that does auto work is something that I have never done and will never do unless my car breaks down on a road trip and I have no other choice.

Did you see the movie "Family Vacation" with Chevy Chase? The scene at the hillbilly mechanic shop is not that much of an exaggeration. :-)

Pat

Reply to
pws

I actually didn't follow any set of directions, I just did the same steps that I followed when I did my parent's Camry a few years ago. The radiator and fan setups are nearly identical.

The only difference at all between the two car models was that the '94 Camry has two engine oil lines that run into the radiator at the bottom. This seems like a good idea overall, but I have never seen it on another car.

Pat

Reply to
pws

Two Lanny-Pat agreements in one day, wow!

This, along with Streeter's latest post, makes it pretty clear to me that the water pump should be replaced every time the timing belt is done. It's not like $80.00 is nothing, but there are too many stories of them failing to last until 120K miles.

Pat

Reply to
pws

After I bought a 10 mm nut driver at Sears, the shield does not frighten me as it used to.

Leon

Reply to
Leon van Dommelen

I am sorry that it ever frightened you, but you are clearly a complete pussy, so it is not a shock to me.

A person like you who is so easy to find should probably not be so quick to insult people in a public forum. (I count 3 from you in 2 days)

That is not a threat, just an opinion on safety and common sense.

Pat

Reply to
pws

Oh boy. Now you've forced me to tell a story. In 1967 I was driving my

1957 Chrysler Windsor to Madison, Wisconsin for my Junior year of college. Somewhere on the Indiana Turnpike on a Sunday, the generator light came on. Gas station on the turnpike had a mechanic on duty. His diagnosis: bad generator. But he said the generator that was in the car was not the right generator. Someone had put the wrong generator in there at some point and had to replace a bracket or something to get the wrong generator in there. He had that right generator, but not the bracket. He worked for a several hours modifying the bracket and finally got me on the road. A few days after getting to Madison, the generator light came on again. Took it to a Chysler dealer. Diagnosis: generator burned out, but the wrong generator was in the car. Someone had destroyed the OEM bracket in order to get the wrong generator in there. Stunned silence on my part.

I believe my father got his money back from the oil co. that owned that Indiana gas station.

Reply to
Frank Berger

No it was just pads. And I think it was just the second, maybe third replacement since I've owned the car.

I don't like $1,200 repair bills, but can handle it. Only expense really in a couple of years, other than oil changes, so it's not so bad.

Reply to
Frank Berger

Caveat: there had been a screeching noise on cold starts for quite a while now, like a belt slipping, but the tension seemd OK. Could it have been bad WP bearings causing the pulley to be stiff and make the belt slip until the pulley got up to speed? Would that have made it more likey to the WP to start leaking when the car overheated? Just a thought.

Reply to
Frank Berger

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