Rusted radiator

[flipfire]

My sister recently went overseas and left me her car to take care of.

I opened the radiator today, and it was just rusted fluid everywhere. :eek:. Also the radiator pipes felt crunchy when i squeezed them. Rust was building up on the cap itself too.

It looks pretty bad. The car is only 4 years old old (64,000kms). Car itself is functioning fine and temperatures are good. I dont think she has warranty left on the car.

Any chance i can still save it doing a flush?

[kcokla]

id suggest replacing it,
radiators and installation isnt that expensive ( 300 bucks or so) better yet, buy it and DIY.

if theres already that much rust building up and it feeling crunchy chances are its too late.

may i ask what car is it?

[fatcivic0_0]

Yea pretty easy to do it yourself. Was it just filled with water or actual coolant ? cause you could just flush out the radiator a couple times with water then replace the pipes that are gone and the cap and fill it with coollant again :)

[flipfire]

Its actually a Holden, 05 Cruze. It was bought from a dealership and i dont think she has warranty left

I dont think coolant was used, it was just brown water. I took out the reservoir and it was water and yucky brown sludge build up in the bottom.

[EK1.6LCIV]

that's your first problem, it's a Holden cooling system lol

when you do replace it (will take you the best part of an hour to do in your spare time after work/uni) go to Honda or BMW and get their coolant as it won't have the same problem as Holden's branded crap which isn't designed to not promote rust (I've persoanlly seen dozens of newer commo radiators with the same problem as it's still very much a tap water blend, and at 200oookms on my Honda radiator it was still new inside apart from the top tank failure as at the end of the day plastic is plastic and it does fail after a decade or so)

prob be wise to inspect your lower and top hoses and replace them, just get some aftermarket copies cheap but I can't see geniunes being more than $100