Hi Guys,

Just wanted to share my story on my $583 radiator repair bill I had a few days ago.

So I had a bad radiator leak which I saw when walking back to my car after getting some take-out, thought it was water from the A/C but this leak was serious and the fluid was blue. Drove it 5 mins back home and the temp gauge went up to 8/10 of the way, when I turned the car off the radiator fan was still going (at full speed) which never happens. Popped the hood and saw blue fluid everyone on the passenger side as well as a missing Acura badge on my engine cover. Dropped the car off at an auto repair shop near my house the next morning. Replaced the radiator/cap/coolant for a cool $583.

Talked to the mechanic and he said the Acura badge from my engine cover fell off and fell into the radiator fan and bounced around in there until my radiator got destroyed. The manager laughed and said that was some Final Destination shit.

 

HAHAHAHA That's amazing! Glad it didn't end up causing any catastrophic damage! Suck that this happened to you though, thanks for sharing the story.

My first "mod" was to remove all of the engine covers.

 

Yikes! That's crazy. I noticed a few weeks ago my engine cover badge was missing. Fortunately for me it didn't fall into the radiator fan and cause problems.

 

thats pretty wild

 

so crab boy was right, take off engine cover does have an advantage lol. Yeah I have to agree that is extreme bad luck.

 

^^ lol only on the 07-08

 

This story borders on the unbelievable. 'Final Destination' is a perfect description of what this sounds like.

I'm just glad you were mindful of your car to notice the fluid leak, the temperature gauge AND that you got it taken care of quickly. I know way too many people whose cars implode and they have no clue whatsoever what happened when there were so many warning signs.

And most of all, I'm glad you were safe!

 

Thanks for the kind words guys.

There is more to the story. So after the radiator replacement I noticed there was smoke coming from under the hood. When taking a look under the hood the majority of the smoke came from behind the engine on the passenger side. Had the same shop take a quick glance at that area and they said it was just coolant burning off and it was normal. I drove like that for a week but the smoke didn't stop and I decided to pull up to the shop with the smoke coming from under the hood. I can get the smoke to become thicker and more pronounced by driving the car hard. Keep in mind I avoided driving hard during this one week timespan.

So I speak to the manager right away and point to the smoke coming from the hood. I popped the hood and showed him the smoke was coming from the same area, and he called the mechanic who replaced my radiator to come over and take a look at it. He took a good whiff of the smoke and said that was oil, and then went to grab a flashlight. Brings the flashlight over and says he thinks the power steering hose is leaking. To confirm this he asked the manager to do a full lock of the steering wheel in both directions. Sure enough the smoke got real bad again, and then my engine bay went "orange." There was fire for about 10-15 seconds but eventually went out. So after seeing that I knew I was not driving the car anywhere anymore until this gets fixed. The repair came out to $355 for new hose, labor, and fluid. The new hose is way more beefier than the old one it has a silver flexible heatshield lined on the outside of the hose whereas the old one did not. Acura SUPPOSEDLY had did the recall on the power steering hose on my car.

Anyways, now the baffling in one of my bafflers is slowly falling apart. Time to throw more money at the car

 

holy shit!

 

wow, thanks for sharing this story. my radiator is leaking as well. i will remove my tl engine badge ASAP!

 

Hope the car is all better now and no more problems.

 

jeez.

 

That power steering hose that runs behind the rear exhaust bank is a known issue: IT IS A SAFETY RECALL ITEM!

The same thing happened to me just last week, but fortunately in my case it did not develop into a fire - I'll include the details in another thread.

I would have the dealer run your VIN to see if the power steering hose been replaced previously. In any case they should replace as many times as required as it is a safety recall item.

Thank you,
TL-Rocket
'04 6MT

 

I had my PS hose recall a few years ago and the Acura warranty replacement one is the one that has the silver flexible heatshield you're talking about.

If your previous hose didn't have that heatshield, then that means the recall wasn't performed. It should therefore fall under a recall repair and not cost you anything. All they have to do to verify if it was done was pull up your VIN in the Acura database and it will show you if it has received that service, since recall work can only be done at an Acura dealer anyway.

 

Go to acura client care and present them with this info, they may refund you or cover the costs....or not


but its worth a shot!!

 

I will bring this up to Acura Client Care. I just couldn't drive the car anywhere after seeing that fire, and the thought of me driving around for a week with that hose leaking really irks me. I was under the impression it was coolant burning off.

Other than that the car is driving great, its at 79k miles and needs some basic maintenance. I am noticing the FM radio reception is not as good as it used to be but the repair for that seems pricey from my research at least (FM amplifier/rear windshield??) I may just activate the XM radio, the current free trial is pretty nice.