Hey guys, I'm not sure if you noticed my thread last week, but a few weeks ago, one of my key "reliability mods" took a dump on me after about 3,000 miles. More info here:

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/so-i-spend-ton-money-reliability-mods-guess-what-goes-bad-689841/

Basically, I put a nice new Fluidyne in, and it sprung a leak and dumped all of my coolant out while I was driving. I threw the stocker back in, and everything appeared fine... for a little while. Now I'm noticing that I have to top off the AST every couple days, but there are no leaks anywhere under the car, ever. When I get on it, people say it smokes a lot, but said it smells more like oil and gas than coolant, but I should probably know better.

Now, is there any way I can force Fluidyne to pay to have my engine rebuilt? I'm really upset that I spent a ton of money on reliability mods rather than power mods(ie, single turbo), only to have them cause what I was trying to prevent. I'm SO glad I paid around $500 to destroy my engine, [joke]if they had told me it was going to happen, I would have done it by myself for free![/joke]

But seriously, does anybody think I could have some sort of case against Fluidyne for selling a product that destroyed my engine? I still have the radiator as evidence, untouched since it was removed.

Thank you for any help/advice!

~A-Rod

 

that sucks. you can try but i dought they would. it would probably be a long process. costing you more money in lawyer fees. they might replace the radiator, who knows. good luck.

 

To be honest, it will cost you more in money and time to sue them than it will to deal with it yourself. Lawyers aren't cheap.

However, the burden of proof will be on you to show that it was a true manufacturing defect which caused the radiator to fail. If it was somehow damaged during shipping or installation, its not their problem.

 

Installed by IR Performance, and the general area of the leak was completely unscathed.

 

My point is that Fluidyne, if they are going to get sued, are going to have their experts look at it. Who are you going to have on your side to verify any findings and are they experts in materials and welding? You can't just say "I'm going to sue them" and not have any grounds to do so. You have to have someone "in the know" verify that the radiator had a manufacturing defect which lead to its failure. Without that, you aren't going to get too far.

 

Understood. Who would be a good option to verify this? I highly doubt it would be very difficult for the person to verify, like I stated before: there is no damage in that general area, and it is very clear that it just didn't hold up under pressure.

 

Have someone who understands materials, welds and knows a little about cars analyze the radiator. Once again, I think you are barking up a tree and there nothing up there, but that's the path you need to go. You have to have some evidence that it really is "their fault". Right now, you know the radiator failed but you have no idea why.

 

Oh I know why... the shitty MIG welding all around the entire unit. I swear, I really think I could do a better job of putting that thing together myself. These companies nowadays manufacture items so poorly; it's ridiculous, and very disappointing. I would expect this kind of work had I bought a no-name ebay piece of garbage, but not from a company like this. The plastic on my stocker holds up better than their ****-poor welding.

 

Post some high res pics of the damage.. Let's look at it..

 

Ahh, it's at my friend's shop right now. I was going to have him weld it for me, but decided to wait until I could find out if there was another route I could take. I'll see if he can take some pics tonight...

 

Once again, there is a difference between "pretty" and "functional". You need to find someone who is an "expert" determine that the welds were/are inadequate. Like I said, the burden of proof is on you.

 

How many miles on the engine? Did it overheat when it lost coolant?

 

59,000 miles, and it got to about 97*C on the PFC when I shut it off and coasted into the nearest lot. Exceed 120*C afterwards; I don't quite remember how high it actually went, I was in the engine bay attempting to locate the problem.

 

While these temps are higher than you might like, 97*C is on the high side of normal. It's normal for temps to coast up to 120-ish after shutdown. I wouldn't attribute coolant seal failure solely to this event.

Is it possible there is another reason you have to add coolant?

 

That sucks man, but im sure that somewhere in the literature you got with the radiator it claims that aftermarket things are not responsible for failures except under certain conditions and terms and all that crap.

Besides all that, lawyers are expensive as hell and like so many other people have said, there isnt any real evidence of anything so its kinda hard to get anything done.

 

Have you tried contacting the company?

 

I haven't contacted them yet, I'd like to get a little solid information before I contact them with any sort of case. Unfortunately, it doesn't look so hot...

While 97*C is high side for normal on other FDs, it is roughly 15*C higher than I usually run on mine. That, and the fact that it went from 82*C to 97*C in literally 3 seconds. And I know the temp went higher than 120, I'm just not exactly sure because, like I said, I was under the hood hoping I could still identify the problem.

 

If the welding was so bad, why did you go ahead and install it anyway?

You should have returned it for exchange at least if that was the case.

Also, was a pressure test done after the install?

Shame on you if you didn't. Because the shop that installed it would have documented it to be good on install or not.



New does NOT mean good!

 

I will pressure check the radiator tomorrow after I finish another customers car.

Hopefully someone reads this and never buys a Fluidyne as the welding on it is (pardon) Horseshit. I've trained many people to tig weld at my last job and by the end of the day their welds would be FAR better than Fluidynes mig welds...

 

I blame my motor woes on a poorly made Fluidyne as well. The upper spout on mine is mounted too high and it caused the stock air box to pinch down on the radiator hose. It overheated several times before I discovered this problem. Read my last post on the attached link:

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/hot-summer-hot-temps-217612/page3/

Also, what is so unreliable about the stock radiator? Sure it has plastic tanks. So what? My minivan has 175k miles on it and I've never touched the radiator. Not even a flush. It has plastic tanks too. When I bought my FD it had 55k on it and it still had the stock rad. I just swapped it out ...just cuz that's what everyone else did.....for "reliability". The original motor would probably still be ok if I just left it alone.

 

I've learned a lot more about good/bad welding because a friend of mine(who happens to be on the forums) is a really good welder. I gave the radiator to a shop and had them install it, and I'm not sure if they pressure tested it or not. It was fine for the first 3000 miles, so I'm not really sure how that is even an issue, it clearly worked when it was installed, with NO leakage.

Shame on me, I guess...

 

Did you fully burp the system after you changed the radiator the second time? Have you checked the caps to see if they might be leaking?

There are so many points of failure on coolant systems, it's not even funny. If you shut down immediately, which it sounds like you did, there shouldn't have been any chance of seal failure.

Also, who did you buy the radiator from?

 

As you may or may not know, there's little on these cars that can be likened to any other car. Sure, your minivan has 175k on stock radiator and coolant, but I'm positive your minivan doesn't have a 2-rotor, twin turbo engine pumping out over 1800 degree exhaust temps. I'm also positive your minivan wasnt built for performance use.

These cars run much hotter than most other cars, especially an economy FWD I4 minivan.

 

SportCompactOnly.com

I burped the system several times, and now I'm realizing it is never going to be fully burped. Also, earlier today I read in adam c's thread that on startup, it may feel like you are running on one rotor. It only felt like that once, and I figured maybe one of the housings had flooded, but it makes sense if I put it together. It only really did it the one time, so who knows?

 

If your car's at the shop now, the mechanic should be pressure testing your system to see where the coolant is going.