Rednroll

So I've been battling and freezing my nads off all winter trying to diagnose a heater related problem. After investigating everything else and performing heater core reverse flushes, I finally reached the point where I highly suspected a small leak somewhere in my cooling system. I went out and purchased a radiator pressure tester to track that leak down. Found a leak on the driver side end cap of the radiator, which only exposed its ugly head with 18psi of pressure in the system.

When I have to replace parts, if there's a good part which provides me some improvements over OEM I'll get it. Currently looking at $205 to replace the OEM rad, so that's my current baseline price.

Mishimoto= $400 and is junk.
Griffin= $600, good but too expensive for my taste.
CSF= $300, not a direct drop in, and junk.

Everything else is the same plastic end caps and just cost less than the OEM.

I see Champion radiators for the YJs at a decent price (<$200) where YJ owners seem happy with them. Where's our JK option like that?

I'm likely going to just go with an OEM replacement at this point and hope I don't run into any problems like others have with their OEM rad. I can't complain about the OEM radiator, mine lasted me 120K miles.

However, there seems to be a big hole in this market segment. (pun not intended)
Anyone have any other suggestions?

cedarraider

I'll probably do mine this spring when I can get the bike out. I'm going with oem style. For 98-120 bucks it's got to be better than spending 3-400 on ones people are having problems with.

Rednroll

Where you finding the OEM for $98-120? I've only seen a couple new take-offs for those prices. However, a radiator take off just seemed like a risk I rather not take. The best price I found on a new OEM is about $200. That's what I'll likely go with, since I can get it for that price from a local dealership and comes with a warranty. So if it decides to spring a leak shortly after install, at least I know I can return it.

Seems odd that I can find a TJ/YJ aluminum end cap radiator with 4.5 star ratings on Amazon and a lifetime warranty to boot but can't find a similar one for the JK and spending $400+ for a Mishimoto radiator with all the reported problems seems like a headache I rather not pay extra to enjoy that type of fun.

I want this for our JK!!!
https://www.amazon.com/Champion-Cool...ngler+radiator

Mjp83

Unfortunately I need to recommend you go with an Oem radiator. I am on my second CSF and even tough they appear well built, they develop leaks around the fins where they enter the side tanks.

cedarraider

The ones I'm looking at are oem so they are cheaper. I've never seen a all alum radiator under 500 that held up long term.

Rednroll

Ok thanks, I did see those when I was searching. It doesn't have a Mopar P/N on it, so my thought was that it wasn't likely an OEM and is likely an aftermarket equivalent.

cedarraider

So apparently there is a class action suit against FCA for some radiator issues. Not sure if this will help all of us but here's hoping.
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-...turing-defect/

Rednroll

I saw that as well. I'm currently crossing my fingers the OEM replacement I got, holds up.

At this time, I'm really starting to get a bad taste in my mouth from the Fiat take over. So much so, that I was originally considering purchasing a JL since my JKU is getting up there in mileage and was thinking I'll keep my JKU for my offroad hobby and get a JL for my DD. Originally, I was impressed with the interior styling revisions that Fiat has been doing for the Jeep brand vehicles but I'm currently seeing a lot of these quality problems not getting properly addressed. Let's just say for now, my wife purchased a new Renegade where she originally really liked it but now it's a year later and the problems have been accumulating and we don't have much faith they'll get fixed and have reached the point where my wife is currently miserable driving it. I've never really considered even looking into using a Lemon Law before but it's starting to seem like this is something I may need to start looking into for this "Fiat" Renegade. I now don't have the confidence in purchasing a "Fiat" designed Wrangler.

cedarraider

Well we can only hope. They are still running the JL ragged all over northern Michigan so maybe they are going to shake out the bad junk.

Rednroll

I'll definitely be waiting a few years after the JL is out before I even consider buying one. I'll tell you a little about the experience I'm currently having with the Renegade.

Before buying, I did a lot of research to see what some of the more common problems were being reported. One of them was with the 9-speed auto trans shifting poorly. So when I test drove it, I made sure to exercise the trans in different driving scenarios paying particular attention to the trans shifting. It seemed perfectly fine to me. So we made the purchase, under the assumption that the initial trans problems being reported were fixed.

I had to bring it in for some warranty service because the MySky removable roof was rattling like crazy, and the A/C wasn't working well. During that visit, the dealership took it upon themselves to also perform 7 additional software updates, one of them being a TCM update. Now, it doesn't even feel like the same vehicle I purchased. The trans shifts hard where it's constantly jerking the car while accelerating and decelerating. When you go to take off quickly while turning and pulling into traffic, the traction control kicks on while driving on dry pavement where you lose power and feel like you're going to stall in the middle of oncoming traffic, giving you that syncing feeling.

So even if the JL does come out great out of the gate, it seems like with a trip to the dealership, FCA will then F it up for you after the fact.