95 Camry Radiator Rot

Jul 27, 2004 3 Replies

Whie stopped at the local bank drive thru the other day I noticed steam coming from under the hood of my 1995 Camry. When I got it home I found that the radiator had sprung a leak (near the bottom) and that the entire lower section had large areas of the fins that had just turned to powder. In fact when I touched it with my finger the fins just crumbled. I installed a new radiator and am on the road again. However, I was wondering if anyone else has run into this type of problem? Any ideas on what might have caused this? Thanks. John


. However, I was wondering if anyone else

Just for the record, what antifreeze type did you use and what intervals was it changed?

that

fact

this?

The only time I have seen this happen, was with a car which was parked daily at a beach-front address. The salt air made short work of the radiator fins.

Jason

I am afraid my antifreez change interval record is not a good one. I use Prestone and have changed it once in 120k miles. However, I did not see any evidence of a leak starting before the fins dissolved. In fact, I would have guessed that this was an outside-in phenomena. The fact that only the bottom half of the radiator rotted makes me wonder whether catalytic converter heat (or leak?) may have played a role in its demise. I was going to take a picture and send it to Toyota for their comment, but our local trash pickup schedule beat me to it.

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