Hello
04 sunfire coupe 5 speed
How long should the aluminum rad last?
Walt
As long as you rinse any road salt out of it in the spring, and change the coolant when required (you shouldn't even need to worry about that for another year or so), the only problems I would expect would be from damage from objects hitting it through the front. The '04 is rather wide open at the front - but if you have A/C, then the condenser should take most of the hits.
Usually I've seen aluminum rads fail where the side tanks are crimped on. Fortunately I haven't seen in this in a J-body yet - but on some other manufacturer's products.
Why the concern? I wouldn't expect much different of an aluminum rad than a copper one, except for the plastic maybe aging over a long period of time on the tanks. I own one car with a 43 year old copper rad that's still fine, but it will be a while before I can say anything remotely close to that for my Sunfire. I don't expect much of it to still be around by that time - unless some day I find a field to leave it in... I'm just hoping that it gets me to the 10 year mark without too much grief. So far my rad appears fine, with the exception of a couple dents from foreign objects (no A/C for protection on mine).
For most cars, regardless of rad type, I've seen them typically need replacement between 7 and 12 years of age. Around here they use lots of corrosive road salt anywhere from November to April, so that doesn't help. Based on daily use, so far my aluminum one is holding up better than the last couple of copper ones I have had. The 43 year old one only has 23,000 miles on it, and no winter exposure, so it's a rather odd exception. Most of the exhaust is still original on that car too.
