Radiator Leak???

[Lord Nelson]

Since i decided to keep my Bora, things keep going wrong with it.

This time, the Radiator appears to have sprung a leak.

the symptoms are that the other day i got a dash warning saying "STOP, Check Coolant"....so i did, and the expansion tank was empty. luckily i had only driven 50yrds from my house, so i filled it back up right away.
Only the night before i had driven the car 60 miles back from the airport where it had been stood parked for a week and everything seemed fine.

so, on closer inspection and the appearance of a constant drip directly under the front bumber i assume it is the radiator.

I have been under the car to look at the hose connections leading to and from the radiator and they appear to be dry, so i can only assume it is the radiator

can anyone shed some more light?

Is a radiator easy to replace DIY or is it better to get a garage to do it? if so, what sort of cost would i incur?

thanks for any help.

btw, its a 2001 Bora TDI PD with AC...cheers
:beerchug:

[sparky14222]

hi , ive got the same problem on my 2.0 petrol , im half way through stripping mine but im worried about the oil cooler , ive never dealt with one of these before , however what i have done so far has been pretty straight forward....i would guess that a garage would want about 2 - 3 hundred quid for the pleasure....ANY ADVICE ON THIS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED EVERYONE ?????????:1zhelp: :biglaugh: :D

[Lord Nelson]

Even though this was a coupl of years back now, I remember that i ended up just changing the radiator. I turned out to be quite a straight forward job, although it took me a few hours due to it being my first time doing a radiator.
Everything came out easily and the change over was fine, although i did slice my fingers to bits because i forgot to wear gloves.
Overall, im glad a managed to do the job myself as im sure the garage could of easily charged me twice the amount is cost me to do it.
Dont worry about doing it yourself, aas long as your careful to follow any instructions you have, you should be fine (although i am not sure about the layout of the Petrol model) - I have since sold my Bora and am now the proud owner of an S3... :D sweet

[Bolster]

I have a similar issue - same warning although the sequence of events was this,

I had driven for about 30-40 mins and when pulling up in the car park, the warning came up on the Dash. There was water coming from somewhere around the header tank. The header tank stayed full.
I got back to the car a few hours later and the header tank was then nearly empty (ie water had been returned to the system as it cooled). It dropped about 1.5 litres of coolant. I topped it up with water and it hasn't had a problem since. However I haven't driven it very hard yet as it doesn't have my confidence.

I'll be watching this thread with interest and will update if there's any more news on mine.

[damianwilshaw20]

Hi, to be honest with you I would try using something called radweld first as I used it on my ford focus and it did the trick right up untill the car was smashed into !(which was about 4 months after) and it only cost me about a fiver at the time and if it doesn't work then it only a waste of a fiver. but i'm proud to say that i'm a proud owner of a bora 1.9 tdi 115 bhp. :Blush: