Firstly appoligise, I know this has been covered but I'm on my blackberry at the moment and searching the forum on it is a pig.

Stilo is currently in the air at the garage as we've got the rear axle off doing the bushes. I've noticed a coolant leak, its on the shroud under the rad and around the N/S wheel cover. Checked the obvious quick release couplings and that's dry, even checked the LPG regulator as that uses a coolant feed and is located there and that is also fine. So I suspect it might be the rad itself. Need to remove some of the plastic surounding it before I can see, if I remove the shroud at the bottom of the rad its not just going to fall out is it?

Its caused a bit of a pain as were off on a 1000mile journey between tonight and saturday in the ole girl.

Many thanks. Jonathan

(Ps, if a mod is able to murge this thread with another or the like then that'd also be a great help ta).

once the quick couplings are off it will fall out, but if you support it it wont fall out...

Forgot to check. Are the radiator and A/C condenser seperate on the Stilo?

Yes..... the condenser is in front of the radiator.

Yes you dont touch the air con condensor at all when you drop out the rad

Look for the two separate hatch panels underneath so you don't waste time dropping out the wrong hatch

You'll find a few of these spring nuts rusted away but get the size from a good one onto an adjustable spanner like this and you can hopefully stop the bad ones spinning

Some of the bolts will be corroded away so obtain 3 or 4 10mm bolts ready

There's s a recent thread on a rad change where i put some pics in

QUICK DISCONNECT

Just push the tabs in and put a large head lever behind the hose and it will fly off
REINSTALLING

Take note of how the quick disconnect needs to line up with the mounting lug on the rad (see the lug in the pic above). Make sure that's lined up properly before pushing the hose connector on

The rad top slides into a tapered mount at the top which holds it in place. (Remove the leaves and dead rat while you're there)

It's easier than it looks but you need plenty of underneath space to drop the rad right out. Axle stands on the rear of engine subframe should do it

Rads vary quite a bit on different models. This is a 1.6 engine

Ta for that. Is it common for the radiators to fail on the Stilo then? I've checked all the connections and they're deffinatly dry. Haven't got around to removing the cover thing (I know what you mean about the two, one for rad and other for A/C condenser). I shal remove that when I get home from our long weekend away and check it to see if its the rad or not.

You mention that there are loads of different ones, I assume that they are not all compatible (can't slide one from a 1.6 into my 1.4)? Just I'm going to be looking at getting a used one from a scrappy. I assume it doesn't matter if its from a 1.4 without A/C concidering the condenser is seperate, and would a 1.2's rad fit as I know they're practically tje same engine bay layout.

Jon

Yes it seems to be common for the modern plastic radiators to fail but the are cheaper and more often easier to replace. They seem to stress crack with age and that's why, personally, I wouldn't bother with a scrappy or 2nd hand one.

Mine was new at £69 incl p+p from coolpartsuk on Ebay

For compatability then it's best to check ePer. I think the 1.4 and 1.6 are the same but 1.2 is different

Tbh at that price your right, can't got wrong, and I'll get cashback through the cashback site I use on ebay. Where do the radiators tend to fail, just sides in general or top/bottom of the sides etc?

Mine failed at the passenger side at the bottom immediately above the lower mount. A good 3cm hairline crack

Deckchair5 said:

Mine failed at the passenger side at the bottom immediately above the lower mount. A good 3cm hairline crack

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Sounds like similar proximity to mine. What age/mileage roughly was yours when it happened? Mines just over 6 years old with 65k on the clock.

I think it's more to do with the state of the roads, I seem to be complaining to the council almost every day. I swear I saw a Fiat 500 disappear down one of the super potholes the other day

Mine is a 2002 so 8 years old and 84k miles

if its road dependant then that's me buggared long ago. I'm bombing up and down dirt tracks and over speed bumps at college. Lol. Surprised its lasted this long and come to think of it there is one particularly nasty bump where the rather soft front suspension doesn't help that much. It all sort of makes sence now :-/

Just following up a used thread with new questions.

I have a mysterious coolant leak.

The system has been 100% tight since last autumn when I decided to flush the system. So I have propably brought this on myself. The coolant has been in there since the car was new in 2002. It was meant to be changed at a service some years ago, but I don't believe it was done.

The existing coolant in the system was red, and is almost impossible to get here. So I did 4 complete flushes with water before I refilled it with blue coolant. I opened the T-joint underneath the radiator area for flushing. Everything went well, but then after a couple of months, it had fallen from max to min in the reservoir. But now I have to refill from min to max every 2nd or 3rd week.

There are absolutely no traces of coolant anywhere. The cap tightens and releases pressure when hot (when opened). I'd suspect a radiator failure when this happens. Any thoughts? I have bought myself a small glass of UV dye for this purpose. It would actually be better with a big leak, just to know what it was. I'd like this fixed before july as the Stilo is going to be the 5th family member on holiday.

I wouldn't think changing the antifreeze type would have any bearing on your leak espeically if it's not visible

But the fact you can't see any leak then most likely it's in the same location as I experienced with my radiator leak, where the metal meets the plastic at the bottom of the radiator


Bottom left hand side


Of course, it's hot down there near the radiator, a small leak evaporates real fast and any drips fall into the lower radiator securing panel. It also only tended to leak when the radiator was at a certain temperature so it was real fun to catch leaking

Very easy job though if you need to change it

Big thanks.

I'll have a look in that area. When we got a radiator built for the Ritmo it certainly wasn't plastic... Propably cheaper to produce.

I was told by Fiat last week that a replacement would cost around 400 GBP. If that's right (will know for sure tomorrow from the parts department there) it will most likely be an ebay experience - if I find someone that would ship it over. Everything is more expensive here (and that's ok), but it seems like OEM car parts are the championship winner with 5-10x UK and US prices.

But the lower part of the rad isn't actually an easy place to look either? How did you manage to squeeze in there with the undertray and bits and bobs - and heat!

I couldn't spot it at all until the leak got bigger and then it was easy

Plastic rads are cheaper and lighter

Autokool ship worldwide if you need one although give them a call for actual shipping costs. Might be all in price of under £100 including shipping

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FIAT-STILO-1-2i-1-4i-1-6i-16V-RADIATOR-NEW-70836-/400090359928?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5d273e6878

Be careful to check compatability for year and engine size, not all Stilo radiators are the same.

What's an undertray?

Deckchair5 said:

I couldn't spot it at all until the leak got bigger and then it was easy

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Ofcouse, haha. I'm just eager to find (and fix) it before the first 1000 km trip north - with family and fully loaded car and roof box.

Deckchair5 said:

Autokool ship worldwide if you need one although give them a call for actual shipping costs. Might be all in price of under £100 including shipping

Click to expand...

Fantastic! Now in my watch list. The most annoying thing about being outside the EU is getting suppliers to remove VAT before export as I have to pay VAT again on arrival. Will do my best, as this is absolutely my best option so far.

Deckchair5 said:

What's an undertray?

Click to expand...

That is a magic item which you don't want to be without during a Nordic winter.

Indeed, and with the moose and reindeer you have roaming about then I'd be attaching cow bars too


Just a heads up that if you have an eazibleed type hydraulic bleeding pressurising kit then you can screw this on instead of your coolant refill cap. Then you can use it to pressurise your coolant system for those awkward leaks that only leak under pressure but you could do without having your engine running and have hot water pipes to work around. Works well but dont go above the normal coolant max pressure of 1.4bar

Deckchair5 said:

Indeed, and with the moose and reindeer you have roaming about then I'd be attaching cow bars too

Click to expand...

Would have any positive effect actually. The reindeers aren't as stupid as the moose. They stay on the roads and are more predictable. The moose, on the other hand, is completely insane and just runs across the road. So a cow bar in front won't work. It will just break the moose's legs and throw 700 kg right into your windshield. RIP.

Anyway, I've taken some photos while I was looking for the A/C leak. There are some deposits around the filler cap. Might this be it???



While looking with the UV-light it was actually easier to spot differences (even without dye) and there was some dark areas on the radiator here. This shows the right side of it (left side when looking down the engine bay).



Right on top it is a butterfly valve like screw. I was able to tighten it about 75°, but it felt hard where it was - and I have never touched that before.

The butterfly valve is the radiator air bleed so a leak there would cause your symptoms and the leak would drop coolant just below there

Marks around the coolant reservoir cap might be sloppy refilling residue or pressure relief spilling out