Radiator Sucks!
 

So today I discovered my radiator is hardcore leaking. I was driving to school and had to stop because of traffic in the 15mph zone. I noticed a good amount of smoke coming out from my engine bay. I've been smelling coolant for a while now but I thought it was just from my new HIDs. It is leaking from the top where the metal meets the plastic, but all around. I thought the white spots in my engine bay was from salt from the roads but now I came to realize it was coolant. I think that the lady that owned the Max before put non distilled water in the radiator for it to fail like that maybe. Iono. But it is bad enough now that I lost almost half of my coolant in the overflow tank. Anyone have this problem before? Probably gonna try to get a nice aluminum one.

i'm pretty sure the radiator just failed.

i have seen radiators fail on cars that are still under warranty.

usually its the seams that fail and it has nothing to do with distilled or non distilled water


luckily our radiators are super easy to do you can do it yourself and skip the $300 mechanic bill

It happens, and the worst part is the radiator support beam going under radiator getting rusty. Leaking rad keeps it wet and it gets rusted in no time. Replacing rad was not a big deal on my 2k Max, just messy a little. That rad support thing was royal PITA though so rad replacement itself kind of faded away for me :).

It happens. You can get a Koyo aluminum radiator through the Group Deals forum. I got one for my 97, it was a perfect fit.

http://forums.maxima.org/group-deals...t-pricing.html

Koyo rads ftw
But be sure to check out the rad support when you replace the rad.

Just bad luck. I twisted and smashed mine in a front end collision with a fedex truck and she never leaked (drove all the way home). It had more waves in it than the ocean.

would they sell the smexy full aluminum ones?

1800radiator carries KOYO's for about $120 and drop ship it too your door in 24 hrs

Leaking at the top seems to be a common problem with the Max. I bought a radiator on Amazon for about $90 and put it in myself. Took about 2 hours and a lot of patience. Don't try to rush it. Lots of people on here will give you advice on installation if you get stuck.

Lots of radiator issues with 4th and 5th gen maximas; that's what happens when you have a plastic radiator tank after about 10 years or so. You can get a replacement for about $65 on eBay or RockAuto that will last another 10 years or so.

I've replaced the radiator in 2 of my 3 Maximas.

I just bought a Max today ( I owned a 96 perviously ) and it started to smell like coolant after an hour plus drive... Hopefully its a leaking hose or T-stat. I did change the rad in my 96 and it took an hour or so. Super Easy... sorry for the silly post but I have to get my count up so I can post my own stuff.

Nice Sig Troop lol!

Our radiators seem to go out around the 100-125k mark. Like other said, metal tank and plastic top and bottom radiators just don't last forever.

happened to me last night after pushing it to 100 against an Benz S500 I knew it blew because the same thing happened to my acura tl back in 08. Just hit 100k too^^^

Im leaking too hopefully ill get this taking care of, does the 99 raditors fir the 01?

I take it the rads in the 5th gen aren't up to par on quality compared to the 4th gen? I have a 96 i30 and a 97 4th gen Max both have over 200k miles and both have the original radiators.

Were you beating the Benz?

Same thing happened to me about 2 months ago going home for Mother's Day on my 2k2 with 108k miles. Although the crack wasn't rediculously bad like I've seen happen to others on here I was definitely leaking from the top resevoir where plastic and aluminum meet. Out of curriosity I called the dealer to see if I could squeeze in an appointment to get it fixed so I could still get home for Mother's Day. They wanted $450 for parts and $250 for labor. Needless to say I did not see my mom that Mother's day. Ordered a Koyo radiator from autopartwarehouse.com and used a coupon code. I think it was $115 shipped to my door in less than 2 days and I got a few bottles of OEM coolant from my local dealership. I replaced it myself parked on the streets of NYC in less than 2 hours and that included flushing the system 4 times. I have had no overheating issues since replacing including running the AC in stop and go NYC traffic in whats been a pretty hot summer. This is a fairly easy and straight foward job and there are some great how to threads in here. Definitly not worth shelling $700 out at the stealership. By the way don't forget to burb the system after you're done.

My 97 rad gave up at around 102K miles.

Just had to replace mine, I think me removing the fans without pulling the upper rad hose killed it. 120k miles. 109 bucks in stock at autozone. Cheaper than the one from my bmw that was notorious for the same failure.

I recently changed mine @ 106k miles. Before you buy a radiator check the group deals section for KOYO radiator deal.

Yeah little by little each model year gives up some portion of reliability or maybe it's the increase in power with what seems to be a relatively small radiator being that it's a core design like that of a 4th Gen max!

I just replaced my radiator today. Got the Koyo one from the group buy section. Anyone know how much coolant our radiators hold? Right now I only have one gallon in there and I can't see any coolant under the cap so I need more, but how much more?

About another .5 gallon if that!:)

^ Thank you!

The whole cooling system holds a little more than 2 gallons (8-1/8 qt with reservoir, according to the owner's manual). I'm not sure how the radiator by itself holds, but I think that, regardless, you should add until it's completely filled and then you'll be able to see coolant under the cap.

I would have never thought of that. I did the same thing and my radiator sprung a huge leak next to the upper hose three months later.

Same thing happened to me a while back... my care had 220000 miles though. It isn't too bad to fix.