Ok, here's a picture of my radiatior overflow reservoir, as you can see, there are several small cracks on the side. This is the only location on the reservoir that looks like this, there is no moisture leaking from the area and my mechanic told me it was just typical stress on the plastic, can anyone confirm? When I bought the car about a month and a half ago, the coolant inside the jug was green, as opposed to the red that it's supposed to be and being a poor college student, I only recently have been able to scrape up the cash to get the right fluid and get it flushed by my mechanic, since the dealer wanted 150 to do the flush.
When I took it in for the flush, he said there was a very small crack in the radiator system that he recommended getting fixed by a radiator specialist garage and having them do the flush at the same time, the said crack wasnt spewing fluid, dripping profusely, nor hardly at all for that, it did have some moisture around it but it wasnt leaking out frequently enough to actually form a droplet that would drip off the cracked area.
So when I took it to the radiator repair shop, they didnt even look at the radiator itself, they just looked at this reservoir and said it needed replaced, charged me 47 dollars for a new one, 50 to flush the system that needs to be emptied anyway to fix the small crack, and 65 an hour for labor. so far, I've only paid for the new reservoir and I'm scheduled to go have the work done saturday which is why I need your guys' help so quickly, if I dont really need to replace this reservoir, I'll tell them to send it back to the dealer they ordered it from and give me my money back and just fix the crack that actually does have fluid coming through it and then finish flushing the system.

Thanks a bunch in advance,

-Justin

 

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don't worry about the reservoir if it's not leaking. you can chagne it yourself with a pair of pliers, a phillips screwdriver and one flat head. 50 bux to flush the system is rediculous. all they're gonna do is drain the old fluid and pour in the new. as for the reservoir itself, you can get one from somebody parting out their care for like 20 or so. did they show you where the radiator is leakin? usually some radiator leak sealer will do it. get the good kind that has aluminum in it. paying 160 to change the reservoir and flush the system is nuts, you can do it yourself for 80 max.

 

You can get the new reservoir and cap from www.ecstuning.com and DIY, real easy just like hiwords said it is.
If you need a radiator replaced use www.germanpartsonline.comfor good OEM radiator less than 1/2 the price that the Audi dealer charges for it.

 

Sweet, thanks a lot, I'll nix changing the reservoir then and have them give me my money back on it.

 

Yep. If you do the flush and refill yourself, make sure to really flush the system. We had to do this on a 12v recently, and after draining all the coolant (radiator drain, plus removal of a drain bolt at the back, bottom of the engine under the car), we reassembled everything except the drain bolt, and put the garden hose into the overflow reservoir and kept it flushing and running until it came out clear. Then started the car with the system refilled with pure water, ran it a bit, drained it again, flushed it again, until we got no green coming out anywhere. From there, we resealed the whole thing, put in 3 bottles of Pentosin, topped it with water, ran the car until it was good and hot, then burped the reservoir and topped it off with water, and it was good to go.

You have to be careful in doing the flush of the old stuff because the G12 that Audi uses has bad reactions with green coolant - it turns into a gel that will seriously screw you up. You have to be sure you get it all out of there and flush it well before adding G12 or you're asking for trouble.

 

Yea, I've heard mixing the two is bad news. Hiwords, you mentioned an aluminum sealant, I think this would probably fix the leak because as I said, its not even leaking out enough to form a drop that will fall due to gravity, its just minutely moist around the area. I can't visibly see the crack however, because the fan housing is where I see the moisture so I'm sure the crack is behind that somewhere. The radiator shop I took it to to get the flush done (which hasnt been done yet because of this crack) told me that using the stop leak stuff will cause more problems in the future, can you (or anyone else) confirm or deny this? He told me that it would probably seal the leak effectively, but most often times it'll gum up the thermostat and heater components within a month which will make winter suck cuz the heater wont work, is he talking out his a$$ and trying to get me to pay him the outrageous 400 dollars to put a whole new radiator in cuz I might be worried that this will screw me more in the future or is there a chance that this could happen? Utah is a very cold place in the winter and I'd much rather have a working heater so any input is appreciated.

Nickerdoodle, can you assist me in that link for the new radiator? When I went there, I clicked on the 'oem parts catalog' and it didnt do anything, the navbar on my browser said it was done loading the page, but nothing had happened, I clicked it multiple times, cleared my cookies, cache and temp files and still nothing so could you maybe link me right to a radiator for my 98 2.8?

Upstate, when you said '3 bottles of pentosin' does bottle translate to gallon? likewise, if it is a gallon, is it a 50/50 mix that you used? Cuz when I went to do the flush, I went to the dealer and got two gallons of the concentrated G12 and it says to mix it 50/50 with water so did you use 3 bottles of 50/50 mix or 3 bottles of straight G12?

 

hmm i've never heard of that stuff messing up other components. as far as i know, that stuff only sticks to other aluminum. by 3 bottles he means liters, then enough water to fill up the rest of the system. it's about a 50/50 mix

 

I've heard talk of the stop leak stuff gumming up other parts of the system, but I can't say for sure whether it'd happen on the Audi. Hiwords is right in clarifying my statement - the bottles are 1L size. Use three of them and fill the rest with water.

If the crack is that minor, why not try sealing it with JB Weld or something like that from the outside? It can't hurt to try it, and it may just save you a bunch of money on buying a new radiator that you may not need.

 

That JB weld idea sounds pretty good, I was reminded today that one of my more distant cousins works at a local garage and would be able to help me pull apart the front end to get a better look at the crack. If it really is as small as I'm assuming it to be, the JB weld is sounding like a very good option. Thanks for the clarification on the coolant, if that is indeed all it takes, I might be able to manage with just one gallon and go return the other, which would be nice seeing as that stuff was about 26 bucks a gallon. In a nutshell, thanks for all the help in general, hopefully I can get the crack patched up with the JB and have that hold for the rest of the life of the car, she's pushing 140k so if this patch can last me til I can afford a new car or this one dies, it'll be nice to have saved all that money so Upstate, thank you very much for putting that idea out there, I'll let you all know if it works.