I guess I'm not used to the idea of loads of plastic in critical areas of the engine bay, but such is the way of the modern inferno combustion engine...

Today the plastic intake nozzle to the radiator of my Volvo V70 wagon gave into the Ghost of Toasty Temperatures and snapped off the rest of the radiator. While it was reinforced with a couple of steel tube liners (think Glock factory mag for conceptualizing), it wasn't a continuous tube from the open end of the nozzle into the radiator, but rather two sections of tube that were simply butted together. So guess where the outer plastic nozzle/shell failed? Well of course it was at that butt joint between the two liners, the weakest point of this assembly. So as a result of this failure, I lost coolant/water flow but fortunately the car's usually falsing warning system flashed a rather unusual RED warning that got me to pull over to figure out what was happening, and after the cursing fit subsided, to kind-of sort-of jury rig the upper hose to hold together with the top of the radiator long enough to limp the car another 4 or so miles home.

I've since discovered that a new aftermarket radiator for the car is a relatively cheap affair (around $120 on average from what I've found; definitely better than a new factory unit at $350-$400). Considering all of the gremlins that this 17 year old car continues to have, I'm inclined to invoke my well-worn cheap streak and do aftermarket. From what I've found from those Swedes, OE plastics ain't anything to crow about anyways.

But I REALLY didn't want to spend a bunch of hours pulling pieces of the front end of the car apart, swapping old for new, then putting the hot mess back together again. I know 17 years is maybe a pretty decent run for a radiator, except I bought this car used so for all I know this might be a previously replaced unit that I'm having to deal with. Regardless, I guess with my rose-colored glasses on I miss those days when the only time I ever had to replace a radiator was because I...(ahem)...smacked them into an inanimately fixed objects...

My 2008 Ford Explorer had a plastic radiator, and a plastic thermostat housing. The radiator lasted about 80k miles, the thermostat housing about 90k. My theory is that manufacturers don’t expect most new car buyers to keep vehicles long enough to experience failures of cheap parts. And that they can make a killing selling easy to replace parts for the people that do who are afraid to do their own work.

IIRC Ford quoted us around $1200 to replace the radiator, I did it myself in a few hours for under $200. They quoted almost $1000 for the thermostat housing and that took me under an hour and under a hundred bucks.

Make sure you get the right configuration of the aftermarket radiator. Wife's prev car was a Volvo 850 Turbo. Radiator was a multitude of devices. Intercooler, oil cooler, transmission cooler, oh and a radiator. Thing was like 5inches thick.

Andrew

Pretty much every radiator made these days uses plastic tanks...and having changed more than my share, I agree. They suck. At least they are reasonably inexpensive to replace, assuming it lets go somewhere that you don't have to have the vehicle towed.

I saw the thread title and thought, "Is he talking about cheap shit like the one that came apart on my Volvo?"

Then I opened the thread, and two of the first three posts were Volvos. Hah!

All-metal (brass) radiators don't usually go 17 years without problems either. However, they can be repaired, even completely re-cored if the tanks are still good, more easily than the plastic/aluminum ones. Also, aftermarket radiators that are half or a third of the price of the OEM one are usually Chinese-made and sometimes have fitment problems, the most common being slightly misaligned fan mounting holes.

I'm shocked on a regular basis how many parts in our BMW's are plastic. C'mon man! How 'bout some old school German engineering.

I've learned that if I ever need to touch the reservoir tank on my 06 mercedes E350, I might as well go ahead and buy a new overflow tube. It's a hard plastic that gets really brittle and will break if you think about touching it. If you get real lucky, you'll also break the nipple on the reservoir tank.

My last major service (200k miles) was supposed to take a weekend. The car was on jackstands in the garage for a month because of this type of issue. "I'm just going to change the thermostat" becomes a two week ordeal because now I've got to order a new overflow hose and wait for it to arrive. Get it in then break the reservoir tank trying to install it, another week down....

This one made it 17 years, it's more likely that the metal parts will rust and fail than a new radiator.

Google the PN from Volvo and see what comes up, some things are best OEM but that of course comes with a price.

Had a 780 up on the lift in Savannah when the radiator took a dump. That’s when I found out they were plastic. Limped it over to the dealer and they dropped a new one in. Just a bit disconcerting.

quote:

This one made it 17 years...

It did, presuming it's actually the original. However since I bought this V70 used and considering how cheap some of the cabin plastic parts are and all throughout the car and engine bay, I've come away doubting that. Aside from the break itself, the plastic of this radiator actually seems to be of better condition than that of the rest of the car. So I'm thinking that it's been replaced at least once before. Moreover, the steel insert sleeves that lined this snapped intake tube have far less rust than what I would've expected for something 17 years along, another sign that this radiator may not be as old as the car itself. So is this radiator actually OEM? That's TBD...

I've done the various Google searches for the correct factory part; discovered that it was used in a number of cars in Volvo's lineup across multiple model years and even through a generational change, albeit only for one partial model year in that car before a proper(?) revamp was finally put into production. As for my wagon, there's at least four different aftermarket alternatives that I've found so far.

As for the fix (I've always wanted to try this):

Well, just for the hell of it and while I'm waiting for the new radiator to arrive, I decided to do something that I've never really attempted in an engine bay before...fix a broken part with good ol' J-B Weld. This intake nozzle tube broke with a rather jagged break. Plus it has those steel liners that could act as a real good supporting base (kind of like formwork for concrete) to apply an adhesive to. So since the radiator is going to be replaced anyways, why not do a bubba fix if only to see if might work?

The specific JBW mix that I used is (I think) akin to the original formulation, based on the packaging and the lack of any citing of 'special' specific applications that the other almost DOZEN or so J-B Weld products down at the local Home Depot were touting. The one I used claimed that it could tolerate heat up to 520°F so considering the typical max operating temp for a properly working cooling system is around 210°F to 220°F, that spec seems very doable. In its properly cured state the company claims that this formulation can handle pressures up to and slightly above 3200 PSI; again considering that a car's cooling system normal operating pressure maxes out around 25 to 30 PSI it would seem that this spec is more than covered as well.

Dry fitting the broken-off end of the intake nozzle to the radiator, the jagged edge of the break made alignment easy since it only "fit" on the radiator one way. Cleaned all of the attachment surfaces in question off as the JBW instructions required. As with past uses of J-B Weld, I had to work relatively fast because of how quickly the stuff starts setting up. But it went on smoothly on the broken part and the steel liner did a great job of acting as support for the goop. Once I got the broken end back on and positioned, I took a bit more of the remaining mix and filled in what voids I basically imagined that I saw and then let this little bit of Frankensteining sit for just over 24 hours for complete curing.

Yesterday after the curing period was over, I tried hand torqueing on the broken bit to see if I could break it off; while I didn't use ALL of my strength I came away feeling like I'm actually NOWHERE close to being strong enough to snap that part off. It seems like it's on there but good; so that 3200+ PSI indicator appears believable. Slipping the old hose also took some effort and put a bit of bending force on the nozzle, but it held up solidly. Hm, another good sign. Clamping up the end of the hose was another test; seeing if a crushing force might cause a break, but of course those steel liners would not let that happen. At this point I'm actually feeling pretty good about being Bubba.

Acid Test No. 1: Running the car

Filled up the holding tank reservoir, then turned over the engine. Car lit up and then I just watched (from a bit of a distance) to see if anything would happen. Nothing did. Allowed the car to get the cooling system up to operating temp, occasionally revving the engine up to 4000 RPM. Once at operating temp, I let the car idle for about 5 to 6 minutes; no leaks, no coolant smell, no break. So far so good. Maybe these kind of wives' tale fixes sometimes DO work after all.

Acid Test No. 2: Driving the car

This happens later on today. Now I get to see if the bond actually holds up in real-world conditions. Find railroad tracks. Find potholes. Take a few sharp corners fast (well, as fast as a lumbering Volvo wagon will allow). Hard acceleration. Assuming I'm not stuck out in the middle of nowhere with almost no signal bars and no cell data service to speak of, impatiently waiting for the AAA truck to show up, I'll report back what happens.