Daewoo radiator. - David Woollard
I had my first taste of a Daewoo the other day, a '95 Nexia stranded at a guys house with coolant "pouring out of the bottom as fast as he put it in the top" as it was reported. Turned out he had noticed the car overheating and limped home the last few miles with the engine "feeling funny".

Of course my first try was to re-fill via the header tank, I have never seen such an effective straight through passage of water in a cooling system.

On checking the leak source I found the radiator drain plug was missing. Because of tight access in the area I removed the rad to find the plug had blown out with failure of the retainer. It was something like one of these plastic 20mm plugs in a plastic end tank with a plastic 1/4 turn thread to seal. All the parts had fallen off on the road somewhere and the hole left had no signs of a thread or any other way the plug could fix in.

Anyway I checked with Daewoo and a large national radiator supplier, plug not available. Ordered the whole rad from the trade supplier, after six weeks of waiting they gave up...there have been none in stock over the whole of the UK during this period they told me.

The only answer was to go to the Halfords Daewoo counter and order a new complete Daewoo rad. They don't do trade or any other discount so the actual price was...............£216-20!

Astounding cost to repair a problem caused by something as small (and lightweight) as a plastic wine stopper.

The new rad had a stronger design of plug but the Daewoo spares guys claimed they had never heard of this failing before.

David
Re: Daewoo radiator. - John Slaughter
David

I think I recall that the Nexia is based on the 'old' Astra. Would an Astra radiator fit? If so, likely to be more easily available and cheaper.

Regards

John
Re: Daewoo radiator. - Andrew Bairsto
It is the same as an old Astra also you could refurb the old one
at many radiator shops in the UK I always used to start by looking in Exchange and Mart.