End of the world for the Jaaaag maybe!!

I had the radiator fail on the Allroad once after I'd just had it serviced, the fan disintegrated and chewed its way through the radiator from the inside.
 
Exact same thing happened to the Corvette the night before an OcUK meet. I feel your pain, except I had to order a £500 radiator from the states = 5 weeks off the road and a lot of hardwork with some friends. Engine was fine and also our handy work checked out okay too!

photo1.jpg


http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk70/rbooner/Corvette rad damage/photo2.jpg
Big Pic
 
Last edited:
Fuzz said:
This :confused::rolleyes:
Click to expand...

FFS it was less than a mile! :p

When I felt something had happened, 5th gear, heaters to maximum, coasted and drove less than one mile using barely any throttle to a point where I could pull off.

As I pulled off the gauge went to maximum from normal, no doubt as it had emptied most of it's coolant. The car travelled less than 300 yards with gauge actually in the red, parked up and shut off with heaters still at maximum. Waited couple of minutes in case engine was red hot and opened bonnet to find engine was only luke warm to the touch and by this time gauge was already back to normal.

Car was recovered to garage using my banks RAC cover, so not driven.

Now waiting for radiator to arrive.
 
Using one of the many, many codes out there with ECP you can get it for around £109.

/edit - looks like you've ordered one, didn't read past the first page :D
 
Exactly, the gauge hit red because no coolant was there to keep the thermostat cool. It doesn't mean, "OMG instant overheating of engine will occur Fukushima style and ££millions of damage has occurred". Heck, I don't even have a temperature gauge in my car, I'd just get a warning to pull over when safe to do so.

I would have no issues about driving a car with a faulty / broken radiator or thermostat to a garage if it was a few miles away of good road and I carried some water with me and stopped if necessary. It just isn't a big deal. It becomes a big deal if you continue to drive under power and then sit in continual traffic. Water leaving a car doesn't instantly warp a head, especially if said car is cruising along a good open road with sufficient air flow. Cars used to manage just fine without water 30 years ago.
 
eatcustard said:
So

If the oil light came on would you carry on driving?
Click to expand...

If stopping would be dangerous then yes, simple really isn't it. A life is worth more than an engine.

When my heater matrix popped and the engine overheated I was driving down a winding road late at night and -4c out. Stopping would have been crazy, too much risk of a 60mph car coming round a corner and slamming into the stationary car or swerving and ending in the forest. So I drove it a couple of miles to a safe stopping place.
Be sensible about it and there's no need to cook it. Engine off and coast downhill, gently as you can uphill.
Actually I drove it about 10 miles with no coolant in at all, stopping twice to let it cool. The engine is fine still, plenty of miles and 2 trackdays later, and this is an M52 engine which are notorious for knackering up the head studs when overheated and/or cracking the head.

I wonder though, if you are stupid enough to drive your car into a flood and drown the engine, you can claim off your insurance for another engine. Could you do the same if you cooked it?
 
Last edited:
As I understand it, no, as external factors caused the problem when you've driven through a flood (despite the stupidity needed to do such a thing) and it would therefore be deemed an accident. Whereas the car just popping a hose / hole in rad and subsequent overheating is deemed a mechanical failing.

I'm sure you'd get a payout if you managed to drive over something that was on fire and things got ugly - again needs a special level of stupidity to do such a thing but these people evidently exist!
 
The issue is pressure in the system avoids localised boiling of fluid. Depending on engine this can cause issues very quickly.


My rover turbo split a pipe at 90mph on motorway. First I knew of it was the engine citing out as no water was getting to the temperature sensor :(. Head bent and needed 30 thou off a skim. The cam seals never stopped leaking after that.

I think Jonnys misses cooked the HG on her mini doin similar to Gibbo.
 
Oh yeah, YMMV, when I picked up my black colt from the yard after crashing it, it was running for about 15 minutes without coolant (rad folded in half, car was ruined so I wasn't bothered about it), after that the engine was FUBAR. I mean, sounded like a jack hammer, bottom end bearings completely knackered, despite having oil still.

Kind of ironic how that engine is meant to be hard as nails but it blew up, yet the M52 is supposed to be fragile like fine bone china yet it survived a drive without coolant unscathed.
 
one of my golfs once had an air lock (no idea how extensive) and it went from cold to over 90 on the gauge and volcanoing water out within a quartermile of home (but being a 16v gti it just laughed when i took the key out and dared me to run it again
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom