I took my 03 Max to the quick lube for an oil change, inspection, and radiator flush. They did the oil change (with my Mobil1), and flushed the radiator. They performed emissions and inspected the car, but found that one of the lights in the headlight was out. They couldn't figure out how to remove the headlight, so I got an emission sticker but no Inspection sticker. The quick lube spanner apologized and explained the situation and told me that I would pay for the inspection now, but if I got the light fixed and returned he would pay for the sticker due to the inconvenience.

I am always skeptical of dealerships.
but....

I took the car to the dealer to fix the headlight. They called back because they were curious about the mismatched stickers, to inform me that the license plate lights were out, and that the radiator was leaking and needs to be replaced. I told them to replace the lights, and re-inspect the car there. They will call me back with a price on an aftermarket radiator, and an oem one; I will ultimately choose one or the other.

This experience leaves me with several questions:
1. Is an aftermarket radiator as good as a new one?
2. Is it possible that a mistake at the quick lube caused the malfunction in the radiator?
3. Is the radiator issue my fault for probably never having flushed it before in ~90000 miles?
4. Is there any way that I can determine the cause?

Any opinions would be appreciated.

/r

 

I had a similar problem with my struts bad workmanship, I would go back to the shop and talk to those people about the radiator see what U can get out of them(lol be calm dont yell and all or U'll get nothing out of them) as for flushing alot of people dont flush their radiators very often but they still work just fine even after the fluid is finally flushed, but if the 5th gen radiator is like the 4th gen, alot of parts on it are plastic, the will eventually wear out and start to leak mine did earlier this year at 180K so some are better than others, so see if U can get some money out of the shop for the radiator I think there was a sale in Group deals for an all aluminum radiator I forgot its name

 

allright dude, if you have'nt flushed that rad in 90,000 miles you were only hurting your engine because the viscosity of the rad fluid was broken down. ie, damaged heads, overheating. yes, you can put in an aftermarket rad, i have a new 1 in my 95 and it was 245.00 installed at a rad shop i trust. ask the dealer whats wrong with the radiator, did they do a pressure test to find the leak??? definitly go to a rad shop, it'll be half of what the dealer wants. thats a no-brainer, 250.00 or 550.00??? and, if you allready had a slow leak, than a flush probably made it worse cause your putting pressure on the rad. good luck, let me know if you got any more issues with that.

 

As for the dealership issue.

I currently work at the quick lube at a Ford dealership. I know what ya mean about being skepticle. I'm not gonna lie, a lot of customers have problems with the things the techs do. And yeah, when the customers do yell, it only makes us angry and not wanna help them. Go with the "stay calm" advice, and don't right out blame the dealership. Good luck with your situation

 

Did you try inspecting the radiator for yourself?

 

No you're not putting pressure. It just conects in series with the system

 

it may just mean that the lube shop flushed the rad without inspecting for leaks. A flush won't make it leak
No cause just wear and tear.
And yes go aftermarket it's as good as OEM. See if you can get a refound on the flush and tell them that you will need a jug of coolant anyways now after the rad install and why do a flash if they missed rad leaking before performing the flush.

 

You should have taken the car straight back to the shop that did the original work and confronted them about the radiator, that is the only way you would have gotten a free replacement. Now that you have had another shop do the work, good luck. I used to work at a quick lube shop. I had a guy come in one time with a nasty mess of a radiator, looked like baby food inside. There were no visable leaks, but I told him up front that there would be no warranty on the work if something went wrong. I did about 4 flushes and some crap was still coming out, but he thought it was good enough. After topping everything off and letting it come up to temp again, there was a small leak at the bottom tank where it seals against the core, no where near where any work had been done. It wasn't much at all, you could just see a bead starting to form. The only thing I could think of was that a leak had been present, and sediment in the radiator had plugged it up. Doing the flush cleared it out. That is one possibility of what happened with your car. We had another incident when one of my techs BARELY bumped the bottom plastic tank on a minivan, and it just shattered like thin glass. It was just a matter of time before that one was gonna go, but we bought her a new radiator anyway.

 

what i meant to say is if they knew their $hit, they would've pressure tested it for the leak area. if you knew it leaked allready, you should've mentioned that to them.

 

Who would go to a quick lube place for ANYthing???

Stuff like oil changes and radiator flushes are way too simple and important to your car NOT to do yourself.

 

Odds are unless the lube goons are totally incompetent (sadly, some are), they didn't cause the leak. More likely all the gunk floating around in the radiator was clogging the leak. Now if the leak is due to the plastic top or bottom being cracked, it could be something they did.

I'd go aftermarket and see if you can find an all metal one. Just make sure the number of tubes matches the original. Some radiators are cheaper because they have less tubes and will not adequately cool the engine.

 

stick with nissan factory parts
it is possible quick lube broke it, they leave drain plugs loose!
a car with 90 k. yes things break sometimes. they are only cars. i've seen radiators go bad uder 30k miles.

 

The stealership probably saw some evidence that there was coolant that was spilled around the radiator and assumed it was leaking. Unless they physically show you the leak while the system is under pressure I wouldn't do it. If it is leaking see if they can get you an all metal one. Most radiator failure happens where the plastic tanks meet the aluminum coils. There are aftermarket ones that are all aluminum with aluminum tanks as someone mentioned earlier.

 

next time, do all your maintenance work yourself.

 

I agree, it's so easy and important, do maintenance like that yourself.

Anybody else see the thing on Jiffy Lubes charging for work not done?

 

def should of been something you could have done and saved you some money.