Ive been losing a lot of coolant over the last few days and have come to the conclusion that its most likely the radiator itself thats split. When i stopped today there was coolant pouring out of the centre gap at the bottom of the front bumper and down from the bottom of the radiator. I took the rad out and can't find any significant damage other than a few bent fins but after inspecting the rad hoses i can't find any splits in them.
My question is what radiators are recommended by the good people of scoobynet? I don't want to spend too much but for the price of a standard rad i feel i could stretch the budget a little to something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SUBARU-IMPREZA-TURBO-WRX-2002-ONWARDS-SAAB-9-2X-ALL-ALUMINIUM-RADIATOR-NEW-/280787615977?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM& hash=item41603f00e9#ht_1510wt_1071
Does anyone have any experience of these type?

My car is a version 8 sti type UK with powerstation tuning and handling packages running 320 ish bhp

 

The radiators can leak between the plastic caps and the alloy core, its not even always very obvious (can just leak a very small amount and then sometimes only when hot). I have one of those ebay radiators and not only does it have bigger capacity in my view its far better quality than the standard (there are a few tuners who are basically selling the same ebay radiators but for lots more money- well they look the same to me and had other members report this).

 

Cheers, I've just ordered one so fingers crossed

 

Change both coolant hoses as a matter of course.

Whe I DIDN'T do that, after changing the rad which had holed, the top hose sprung a leak the next week.

It was microscopic and only jetted out when the engine was hot and the coolant pressurised.

 

I was thinking that would be a good idea, I ordered a full coolant hose set from eclipse performance through the group buy section on here this morning. A fresh leak after already putting 8 litres or so of halfords advanced coolant in over the last week is exactly what I DON'T want lol

 

Never worry: mine came out of a pinhole only when the engine was HOT and the coolant pressurised, so it would leak a bit, de-pressurise itself, then RE-pressurise, leak again, etc etc.

MY problem was that it did it first time ever, sitting in a trafffic queue.
Now you have to SEE the amount of steam that comes from even a teaspoon of water when it gets vapourised........and there was I sat in this traffic queue, clouds of steam from under the bonnet, thinking it was SMOKE and the damned thing was on FIRE.

NOT good.

Change your hoses.

 

haha yep i had puffs of steam that looked like they were coming from my wheel arch at first when i was stopped at lights yesterday. safe to say i was cacking myself