FYI, same thing happens to Fords, Toyotas, et al. Old plastic goes bad. Mine were all over 15 years old. It's a minor job putting a new rad in. Hardly a big deal. You were suckered with a Lumina APV, weren't you? Should have done your homework. Then you wouldn't mistake it for a Lumina sedan. And saved yourself more pain than I've ever had.
Same here. My belt broke, the engine got a little hot, but I stopped as soon as I saw steam. The plastic top of the radiator had a 4 inch long crack in it. I had to replace the radiator. The old brass ones never cracked open, and when they got a leak, a little solder fixed it. So rather than spend $5 on solder, I had to spend almost $250 for a new radiator. And that was just for the part, I replaced it myself. Whoever designed radiators made from plastic should be hung in the town square by their balls.
This was interesting.... My replacement radiator has 2 small tube stubs just below the radiator cap. The top one is above the pressure seal and is for the overflow tube. The one below it is not used in this car. Autozone and Factory both could not tell me what it was for - guessing it was made for more than one applications. The kit in the box had a rubber vacuum cap and the factory guy said that was to put over the 2nd port if it was not needed. I put it on with a hose clamp, and a few months later the bottom blew out. I replaced with a short length of heater hose with a bolt screwed into the outlet and fastened with a 2nd hose clamp. So far that has held. I call Factory again and told them about it, and they were not interested in the problem.
News here last week was that GM bought a $500MM part of Lyft. Why aren't our fearless Congresscritters raising hell about this. I'm not a big fan of taxis, but they are one of the few large collectives in the US that actually works. I don't trust any of these cut rate ride services.
Rad shops were a LOT busier in the days of the brass rad. Not only did the soldered seams let go, requireing soldering, but the brass tanks cracked too, Sure, you could solder a patch on them when they split = but they did split. And the hose fittings broke out of the tanks too. Aluminum rads stand up batter than bras ever did - and when they need to be repaired or replaced you can replace them for less than the cost of a repair in many cases.
They can. Look at any expensive hot rad radiator. Then look at the price - - - - - - - -. Then you have your answer.
And aluminum has NO reszistance to fatigue cracking. If it bends AT ALL stress build up - so any vibration transmitted to the tank and other parts of the rad WILL cause it to fracture in time.
Plastic is stiffer and does not fatigue crack (where brackets mout to tanks, for instance)
Moulded in brackets and everything with plastic tanks make them a LOT cheaper than aluminum - and the failure rate on plastic tanks is no higher than the failure rate was on bras rad tanks - whith the mouting straps coming off, the hose spigors breaking out, the tank seals letting go ----
Why do you think there are so many fewer rad shops today than there used to be - with 10 times as many cars on the road, and the average fleet age almost double.
10 year old cars used to be junk. Most cars never hit 100,000 miles. The average radiator was repaired at least twice in that time, and most were recored before 10 years or 100,000 miles.
Today it is nothing for a rad to last 150,000 or 200,000 miles, or 15 years. My 20 year old truck still has the original rad.(at 340,000km)
Of all the cars I've owned in the last 40 years (at least 12), all of which went well over 200,000 km and 12 years (some 18) I've only had to replace one rad - and that was on my Pontiac. (to be fair, it had over 300,000km on it)
The last time I had a radiator with that kind of leak (the crimped over aluminum over plastic) I just used vise grips to tighten about 4 inches of crimps in the leaking area. Fixed the leak.
Maybe. But back in the day of brass radiators I was a regular at the radiator shop. With the plastic ones they seem to last and last. And when they do go back they are cheap to replace, so cheap they aren't worth even trying to fix. Brass was so expensive you didn't replace them unless the shop said they were past the point of repair.
That's the same story I heard from long-time radiator shop owner. He closed the shop a couple of years ago due to retiring but mostly due to lack of work due to plastic replacing metal.
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