I went to pick up lunch today and noticed that my radiator fan was going on full time. As I pulled away from the parking spot, I noticed some red fluid on the ground...thought it might have been from a car before me...drove my box back to work (about 15 miles). Long story short, I had a radiator leak and fixed it with Alumaseal. Couldn't have happened at a worse time. I don't have time to go to take it to the shop at the moment. It's got water in it right now. I'll fill it up with OEM Toyota Pink fluid tomorrow.

Anyways, radiator leaking at 56k miles...does that sound right? I've had other Toyotas and radiators don't start need changing until way past 100k. What sucks is my warranty expired at 55k.

 

I hope you didnt use tap water to refill. Did you pour the entire bottle into the rad.?

Any of that sealer stuff is a bad idea IMO. They all say
"non-clogging" which is an obvious lie or they wouldnt work. How does alumaseal know what to cling to? Not only are your radiators aluminum but so is your entire engine. Radiator sealants in general work on the same principal by which hair clogs your bathroom drain. Any hard edged corner or passageway, such as, hopefully, a leaking joint, catches one of the fibrous or rough particles of the sealant, which then catches another, and so on until the leak is plugged. It can, unfortunately, build up on any such edge that may happen to exist within the cooling system, and can also work it's way under the impeller shaft seal and cause that to fail.

I would recommend draining and refilling it to get rid of as much of that stuff as you can. Repeat this once or twice (even 3 or 5 times is not a bad idea) with distilled H2O.

Ideally, you would find out exactly where the leak is coming from. Can you look for staining to find out where the leak is coming from? The driancock is made of plastic and screws into plastic. When I did my first drain and fill, I noticed the draincock was very easy to loosen. Care must be taken when tightening, since it is a plastic on plastic connection.

Keep an eye out for a xB in a junkyard and consider buying it if it is a low mileage wreck. Might be just a little more than taking your existing rad. to a shop to have the repair done right.

 

Oh yeah, look for leaks/staining on rad. itself, freeze plugs and water pump weep hole.

 

go for an aftermarket radiator

 

That sux.are you just going to patch it up or are you going for a new radiator? I caused my own problems yesterday, I droped a screw in the fan shroud and didnt take it out and it got caught between the fan and fins and put a small hole in it

 

Sorry to reprise an old post.

Last Friday, at 71,300 miles, I found a new puddle of antifreeze under the car while running errands. It was flowing pretty heavily so I had the car towed home and put in an aftermarket radiator during the weekend.

Here's what I saw.





Everything is fine and dandy now, but what would have caused that nasty hole? It's pretty big.