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[Big_Mart]

Evening, has anyone heard of or had a oil cooler go on a 03 model the car has full vaux s/h and has had 2 coolant changes its a 3.2 auto with 57k on the clock the reason i ask is the later cars had stainless coolers and in my 8 years at a dealer ive never had a late car cooler go!!!!!
The oil has mixed into the coolant and not into the sump so its pointing to the cooler IMO :-/

CAN SOMEONE MOVE THIS PLEASE PUT IN WRONG PLACE SORRY!!

[Kevin Wood]

That's worrying

Do you know that the coolant was really replaced? Long life coolant should last 5 years so the theory goes....  

Better move the coolant change further up my todo list I guess!

Kevin

[6cylinderman]

Just for comparison, the oil cooler has gone on my 02 3.2 manual.  Exactly the same symtoms as your car.  The previous owners used a very weak coolant mixture (mostly water by the looks of it).  The guys on this forum reccommend changing the long life coolant every 2 years as a precaution.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Changing the coolant is only part of the story......if the engine is loosing coolant and the owner is topping it up with water then it will still corrode as the inhibitor concentration will drop off.

Stainless coolers were fitted from about 94/95 onwards, most of the non-stainless ones were only fitted to the C25XE in the Cav and Calibra.

And moved to tech area!

[Kevin Wood]

Am I right in thinking the oil cooler cover's aluminium too?

Not a very good combination from a galvanic point of view. Trying to think back to my chemistry lessons... :-/

It's not hard to see why there are problems when the coolant starts acting as an electrolyte.

Kevin

[bigdods]

My oil cooler was replaced at around 70k , 2000 facelift 3.0. This was just after I bought it, and I had noticed that the previous owner was using a weak mix of blue coolant. The weak mix was probably due to topping up with water , but I suspect the use of blue may have contributed to the failure in the first place. New oil cooler and red coolant now in use !

[Entwood]

The service history of the new beast shows the Oil Cooler was replaced at 46700 miles - It doesn't say if it had a stainless one fitted but I'm hoping so !!

Seems the failure time is quite random ..

[TheBoy]

The service history of the new beast shows the Oil Cooler was replaced at 46700 miles - It doesn't say if it had a stainless one fitted but I'm hoping so !!

Seems the failure time is quite random ..

it will be stainless.

I suspect its poor coolant servicing.