I was at the end of a long drive and I was almost home when I saw my temperature gauge needle going up (s5 stock gauge).

I pulled over immediately and shut the car off. The needle never pegged H.

I got a lot of steam coming from where the upper radiator hose meets the thermostat elbow.. and after waiting it out I found that the end of the elbow had cracked all around. I reattached the hose and clamped it closer to the end of the hose where the elbow hadn't cracked, added in almost a gallon of coolant/water and limped it home.

The car didn't sound/drive any different and I didn't see any white smoke nor smell any coolant in the exhaust.

I guess what I want to know is.. will my 7 live?

Obviously I need a new thermostat neck (a metal one), but I'd be quite screwed if i needed a new engine.

 

Your 7 sounds good to me

 

give it a few days, if after that it still starts normally and doesn't have coolant disappearing you should be good.

there are no guarantees on a 20 year old engine, if it was rebuilt within perhaps the last 10 years though it will have a much higher survival rate.

 

Thanks for the responses.

I'm going to do the champagne bubble test when I get home from work today. Hopefully everything goes well.

It's pretty unfortunate. I've replaced just about everything else in the cooling system. I never realized the thermostat neck was a point of failure, but now I have an aluminum one on the way from mazdatrix.

 

good idea, the plastic filler neck on the S5 is definitely the first weak point tied with the heater hose off the driver side under the oil filter.

 

Well the car passed the champagne test.

All I can do now is cross my fingers :x

 

I think you're fine. You'd be driving a fog machine if your coolant seals were toasted.

can't be too careful though!

 

contrary to piston engines, the seals usually don't show immediate signs.

yes better to be on the safe side versus push the car without regard to water temps.

 

Live, 7. Live!

 

I'm confused as to why Mazda thought the plastic would be a good idea?

 

cuz it's cheap (easy to manufacture)

obviously.

almost all car has a design life of about 10 years. what that means is that it should work for the next 10 years or 100K miles. anything after that things should (will) start breaking left & right.

so a plastic neck, it might make Mazda look like a cheap ***, but hey it actually did it's job pretty good.

 

most cars now have plenty of plastic on them and they last as long as can be expected, i mean this plastic part took 20 years to fail.