I was checking out the radiator yesterday and noticed the top and bottom tanks were plastic and appear to be just crimped in place...is this for real? Am I missing something? How do they guarantee no leak from a plastic-aluminum interface?? Anybody have any insight??

 

I have had both a Nissan and a Hoda with the plastic caps on the radiators - they both lasted over 10 years and 100K miles. Not to worry.

 

Honda/Acura has been using crimped plastic top and bottom rad. tanks for quite a while and they appear to hold up well. The top tank on my wife's Legend cracked at about 100,000 mi. Cost $90 to fix, not too bad.

 

Plastic lasts a long,long,long time.........

 

All major manufacturers have adopted this approach. Here in OZ, Ford has been the last of the local manufacturers to change over - we are talking about a decade+ old engineering here that has been tried and proven well before the Stook hit the streets.

 

They've all been doing this for years. I wouldn't worry.