Radiator Leaking?

Author
Discussion

mgvs88

Original Poster:

13 posts

256 months

Thursday 31st July 2003
quotequote all
My 2001 Elise ran hot, around 103, living in Singapore the dealer said it could be normal. After adding water to the expansion tank three times I took it to the dealer. He is telling me that it is a radiator leak, they had to remove the radiator and weld it! Not fittings, but the radiator itself. This should be a factory defect, however the dealer disagrees! Anyone had a leaking radiator, what is the cause?

Arno

349 posts

285 months

Thursday 31st July 2003
quotequote all
I had a leaky radiator on my Nov 2001 S2.

In my case it was a pinhole leak on one of the welds from the radiator to the metal base of the side tanks.

I noticed because drops of (green) coolant were showing up on my windscreen and the front of the car smelled like coolant when it was hot.

Make sure though that it's really the radiator and not one of the jubilee clips that hold the coolant hoses to the radiator. If these are not tight then the connection to the hoses may leak too.

Mine was partially re-funded (including labour work) by Lotus, even though the car was out of warranty.

Bye, Arno.