So if any of you out there saw the 996tt in the giant could of smoke on the side of the road just south of downtown Oakland on 880 that was me. Don't exactly know what happened yet but noticed a bit of smoke in the rear view and then the coolant low light came on and I pulled over. Whole rear outside of the car was covered in coolant and the cloud of smoke was impressive with rush hour traffic people yelling at me to get away from the car because they thought is was on fire. Wish I had the camera with me. Trying to explain not to worry kept me busy for the first 30 minutes. 1.5 hours later I made it the remaining 2 miles home in a tow truck. Will be checking it out when it is light out tomorrow and any advice on where to look for massive coolant leaks would be appreciated. With a quick look all I could see is coolant all over the engine bay. Glad that the shop I go to is less than a mile from my house.

 

Finally got the car fixed. Turns out the leak was because a press fit connection blew out. The picture below shows what it was. Nice to be able to drive the car after 2 months without it. Driving the Mini is just not the same.

 

glad you got it sorted out man.

 

Wow. Was it a pretty easy repair? Yeah, I guess most people are not used to steam from the rear! Probably thought the gas tank was on fire!

 

How long did it take to fix this leak?

 

According to the shop, the repair job took more than 16 hours (warranty company would only pay for 16 hours) as pretty much everything on rear top of the engine had to be removed and then put back together. Joe at Porboys was very helpful with the whole thing.

 

Why did it take two months? I would probably go insane without my car!

 

Get coolant on something hot enough and it WILL burn, be careful with coolant leaks too! That's a rotten place for a leak and it looks like a pretty big pipe to let go too. Pulling over when you did was probably a pretty good idea.

 

Glad to hear another tip is back on the road. Happy for you bro.

 

Sorry to spoil your story, but I think others that may read this in the future may be glad to read that I too had this same issue and it was repaired for $600 by ol' Sam Shalala of Pro Technik in Houston. He the area really well and then epoxied it somehow all without removing the engine.

 

The shop said if it was their car or their brother's car they would do exactly what Pro Technik did for your car. Since it was my car and it was covered by warranty, seemed like a better idea to replace it. Glad your's worked out.

As for the earlier question about why it took two months, it took me a week to even look to see what was wrong. Poured water in and watched it poor out but could not see were it was coming from. Then went on vacation. Second issue was that when I bought the car they entered the warranty into the system incorrectly as "Silver" when it should have been "Platinum" and I had to get that resolved before I had the work done otherwise it would not have been covered.

Looked for every excuse possible to drive the car yesterday, time to go grocery shopping, daughter needed to go to Target, drop off for a sleep over, what we need a new belt for the vacuum .... Always took the long way and somehow ended up on the highway even when it was only a eight blocks away.

 

I just had my second failure of this part. The first fitting lasted 6 years and about 80,000 miles before letting go. It was replaced last year with a brand new OEM part and I thought I would be good for a long while. Last week, less than a year after installation, the new part blew a fitting out again. The part only was under warranty, but the cost of removing the part was way more than the repair. Fortunately, it was the side towards the drivers side and we could access it by removing the alternator. My shop did the epoxy repair for under $500.00 and we devised a bracket to prevent it from popping off again. The other side is still at risk and more difficult to access. If I knew last year, what I know now about this part, I would have welded the two aluminum fittings to the body of the part before installing the new part last year. If anyone is having to replace this part, I strongly suggest you weld the two fittings in place, which would prevent a likely second failure at some time in the future. This part is of weak/poor design and should have come welded instead of epoxied from the factory. Even a tack weld with the epoxy used would probably last forever. Amazingly, the car was in at 11AM one day and ready for pickup at 10AM the following day.

 

John, do you have any pics of this bracket you came up with? My engine is apart now and would like to do all the preventative stuff while it is out. The shop told me that this same part looked like it was about to go.

 

Don,

I don't have a picture of the bracket they made and the bracket is not the best way to deal with this - we did it because it was the side we could reach without removing the engine (this time) and we just epoxied again. With the engine out and apart, remove the oil cooler and weld the two pipes to it. They are just epoxied in place and the epoxy breaks down. Many will have this failure as they accumulate years and miles. I had a new OEM part fail in less than 1 year. Here is a picture of the part, you can see the pipe on the far side - the near side is the one that popped out the first time and as you can see it's not there. I was still connected to the hose. Weld 360 degrees around the base of the inlet and outlet pipes where they enter the housing and you won't have to worry about it ever happening...that's what I should have done the first time (just permanently repaired the part, live and learn).