Major problem, Radiator leak?

[oragex]

Let's be sympathetic to those who run repair shops. They will not spend time shopping the inter webs and anchoring the price of a part at the cheapest vendor in Ulan bator and then adding their labour. Shop is getting a quote from their reliable wholesale supplier and marking up to keep the lights on

Good point. I was thinking a garage would look for the lower/best quality prices, but indeed, that's what rather us owners usually do.

[MrAl]

Hi,

Yeah, it's a toss up because we want the best price yet we dont want to short change the garage either or else they go out of business and then we dont have a garage anymore

In our town we lost a lot of businesses in the past because of the larger outlets like Walmart and Home Depot. They arent bad in themselves, but now we have no local hardware store for example which carried everything you could think of.

[scot850]

If we don't use them we lose them! I know a lot of folks have problems with their vehicle dealerships, but even there, we have only 2 Volvo dealers in all of our Province (300km a part!). I try to keep a good relationship with the dealer, parts guys and repair guys and it helps me get some discount on parts and labor. They know I appreciate their help and they try to go the extra mile! Even our local repair shop is extremely helpful (I drop off cases of beer from time-to-time), again, I try to keep the relationship healthy. If you don't, then don't complain when they are not as helpful as you would like. What's the saying, " It is a 2 way street"?

Neil.

[tryingbe]

Rhino ramps CANNOT be used on loose surface.

You can build yourself some wooden ramps

[MrAl]

Hi,

Wow, nice little construction there.

Yes, i would have to use them on firm ground but not pavement really.

I forgot to reply to Evan's post about the other garage.
That garage would be a little too far to go with this car the way it was leaking. If it was towed maybe, but i didnt want to have to do that. I might have been able to make it, but i cant take the chance of having a problem on the road that far from home.
Still, would be interesting to hear their price.

[E Showell]

I know I have posted this before, but it does bear repeating. Some years ago I realized that my local mechanic has neither the time nor inclination to price shop for parts. I knew I could get quality parts cheaper, but I still wanted him to do some of the work. Thus, I offered him an arrangement where he would install parts I supplied, but I would show him my parts invoice and he'd add his standard parts mark up on top of my invoice price so he wasn't losing too much money on not supplying the parts. He said that wasn't necessary yet still has agreed to install parts supplied by me. He knows I do a fair amount of my own work and encourages me to do so. From time to time I will ask him to do a repair I know I am capable of doing, but maybe don't have the time to do simply so I can give him some work. The relationship has worked for both of us for almost 20 years although I've only been supplying him with parts for about the past 10.

P.S. I use Rhino ramps on a gravel driveway without incident.

[MrAl]

Hi Evan,

Thanks for the reply. That's an interesting thing to do. I was thinking about that too, but this time i couldnt figure out which radiator was the right one. Last time i did this kind of job was probably 40 years ago when i went to the parts store and told them the make and model, and got the part i needed, or went to the junk yard down the street and got a used part there (radiator for example, which i did once). Now i dont live there anymore but the junk yards are gone anyway.
Also, the core used to be made of brass or copper, so SEVERAL times i took out the radiator (different cars) and soldered the hole. Wasnt that easy, but the cost was like 2 dollars to fix it. it took time, but there was little to take off so it was like an hour or so. These rad's have aluminum core so i cant solder, but also plastic which i think has a problem over time. Who's idea was that, using plastic? That's nuts.
But anyway, i'll think about doing that too in the future.
Oh i did bring an oil filter to a garage once just so there was no wait for him to order one. He didnt mind at all and that way i could get any filter i wanted to get.

I will look into the Rhino ramps, although i really hate getting under a 4000 pound vehicle.

[abscate]

Who's idea was that, using plastic?

Actually, it was our idea. You wanted to be able to drive a 1998 car in 2016 and to make it economically, they had to use a lot of plastic.

[MrAl]

Who's idea was that, using plastic?

Actually, it was our idea. You wanted to be able to drive a 1998 car in 2016 and to make it economically, they had to use a lot of plastic.

Hi,

Ha ha, yeah. The reality of what plastic has done to our society

The thing is though, with my older cars the rad was made out of either brass or copper, i think it was brass. So i could pop out the rad, solder the hole, then pop it back in, go for another 5 years no problems. I fixed some of the worst problems on my car by soldering the rad, and someone else's car too that had a big leak in the rad, soldered, ready to go again.

Of course this car rad install is so complex that i may have not been able to do that anyway because usually the rad has to come out for a soldering job i found, because the rad has to sit in a horizontal position in most cases while being soldered. Not only that, but this car has the fan mounted over top of the radiator so i cant see the fins anyway.


WELL, the fix is done now. Total cost 585 dollars (USD).
If someone can identify the gender of the connectors, i'll post a couple pictures as i have some nice pics now. I'd still like to know what that is all about.

Thanks for all the ideas again, and if anyone has any more ideas about this id like to hear them too. I like to know as much as i can about this car.

[MadeInJapan]

Hi Evan,
Also, the core used to be made of brass or copper, so SEVERAL times i took out the radiator (different cars) and soldered the hole. Wasnt that easy, but the cost was like 2 dollars to fix it. it took time, but there was little to take off so it was like an hour or so. These rad's have aluminum core so i cant solder, but also plastic which i think has a problem over time. Who's idea was that, using plastic? That's nuts.

Actually, there are still specialty shops that repair radiators. We have one here in Knoxville, TN. They fill it with pressurized air and submerge it to see where the leak is from and then put welds where the holes are. The issue with our cars is two fold. 1) the radiator shares not only coolant but transmission fluid and on turbo cars, oil. That said, 2), the plastic seam or the upper coolant hose is usually where they crack or come apart and no one has really found a good way to fix that (with lasting results). When my son's radiator on his N/A 850 went- it mixed coolant and transmission fluid internally and killed his transmission (so we also had to replace that at the same time), we got a used transmission from a donor car and the radiator out of a junk yard but didn't know if there was an internal breach, so I added a small external cooler for his transmission that I attached to the front of the radiator (looks like small radiator). Now this is old school but worked fine! He drove the 850 until it finally died from a burnt valve several years later. I suppose we could have had upper engine work done on it to keep it on the road, but he had already wrecked it several times (all of which I fixed from junk yard parts) and it was time to retire it (close to 250K miles) rather then put more money into it- which was not really cost effective considering the age and value of the car, not to mention, he wanted a newer Volvo!