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Watch out for those plastic quick-connect fittings on radiator hoses
I had a 2012 Civic come in last Tuesday with a sudden overheat, and after 20 minutes of poking around I found the plastic fitting on the lower hose had cracked clean through while the car idled at a light, coolant dumped all over the hot exhaust manifold, and the owner was lucky it didn't catch fire has anyone else seen these fittings fail without warning?
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robert_bell14d ago
Honestly I think people blow these plastic fittings way out of proportion, I've got over 200k miles on my original ones without a single crack or leak and I live where it hits 100 degrees in the summer and below zero in the winter. The engineers wouldn't use them if they couldn't handle normal operating conditions, most failures probably come from people not replacing coolant on schedule or using cheap aftermarket stuff that eats at the plastic over time. How many of these "failures" are actually from someone manhandling the clip wrong during a repair and then blaming the part when it eventually gives out?
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ryantorres15d ago
Actually those were the upper hose fittings that failed, not the lower ones on that generation.
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