Just been out in the S for the first time in ages since the big freeze hit the Midlands, and at the same time decided to fill her up, check oil and tyres etc.

However whilst cleaning out the enormous pile of leaves the S quite diligently seems to enjoy regularly hoovering up from Britain's roads, I noticed this (apologies for the crap pics - I lent someone my camera recently and haven't got it back):





Basically on the very front Heat Exchanger element (pretty much the first thing behind the splitter) the bottom lattice has come away from the next row up on the right hand side

It still appears fixed at the left but is hanging down slightly. I can only assme this happened when I hit a piece of debris on the road a few months back - I think it was a flattened can or something (the splitter avoided any damage but there was a bit of a whack).

I haven't noticed any issues since and whilst the coolant level is fairly low, it is not empty. It seems to be dry where the lattice has come away and it looks fairly minimal, however I'm obviously concerned about the damage.

Is this serious and how urgent is it to get this fixed? I'd rather not take it to Honda but would like to get it sorted before the next service.

I think my next step is to fill up the coolant and monitor it. What's the stuff to use and how much should you fill it up by (the indications on the bottle are absolutley crap!)?

Any other observations?

TIA

 

I think that's the A/C radiator rather than the engine radiator. Most older radiators look like that, not a huge problem really IMO

 

I've had plenty of cars with that and it has never been a problem. You can loose quite a lot of filaments and the things will work (on other cars anyway) I wouldn't be worried if I were you, just keep a weather eye on the temperature gauge to be sure.

 

Have a look at the beginning of this thread!

 

As has already been said thats the AC condenser, as long as the core isn't damaged don't worry.

 

Looks like a cooling fin to me, since the area is dry I would't worry about it. I had a shitty old civic with whole sections missing and it ran fine, even with all the abuse I gave it.


Might be worth checking to see if the aircon works

 

Mine started to do it at 2 years old, it finally fell off this summer with no ill effect to the A/C

 

That's the AC Condensor.

Mine is worse than that...don't worry

 

Thanks everyone. A/C works fine as far as I'm aware.

 

As others have said, provided it is only the cooling fins which are becoming detached, there is nothing to worry about. There will just be a very slight loss of efficiency, which you won't even notice.

In my case, the problem was more advanced, and I decided it would be best to replace the air con radiator now, than to have to deal with the problem when I was on the road a long way from home!