ebay radiators

[Cuzzo]

JAR rads are still asia cores with welding done here.

Also i highly doubt that a leaking ebay rad will kill your motor. (unless your totally dumb and cant read temp gauges)

[Cuts]

I emailed the michael auto parts dude, his rads are golpher ones. He doesnt list a 205 but the 202 ones he lists are the same.
These radiators take the origional radiator cap (insted of the ghetto one you get and have to use with some of the cheaper ones)

They also come with 12 month warrenty.

[sillycar chick]

Dunno if its still the case but at one stage the JAR rad cores were coming out of the same factory that do the PWR ones...
But moreso my concern isnt where the cores come from, its just if its a know product. If you can find others using the same product who arent having problems, then youve done some research and can make an informed decision (which by the sounds of it may be the case with these particular rads). Ive suggested the JAR oens based on experience, cost and knowing if something goes wrong you know who you can talk to about warranty etc. Dunno if you'll get that same offer with ebay rads, especially if theyre coming from OS, our fair trading laws wont apply and you'll probablyl be lucky to get a reply if you have any warranty issues. Personally i'd rather pay a little more and not take the risk, in my experience you usually get what you pay for. (obviously not aiming any of this at anyone, I can see from the last post that the rad Cuts is looking at has warranty which is great)

Also if you leak enough water quickly enough, your temp guage wont even read that its getting hot, senders only work when they are in contact with the water. I had a rad hose sliced oped on my first car and it dropped water so fast the temp guage couldnt even get a reading high enough to warn me, the only way I knew about it was when steam started coming out the bonnet and I heard the knocking noises... too late by then

[manny]

We run a <$300 Michael Auto Parts/Golpher radiator in our track Soarer and it has performed flawlessly double stinted in half a dozen track days in the last 12 months.
I drove over to their store/warehouse in Greenacre, even though I had the option of buying it online on eBay, just so I could get a feel for the business operators - I'd have no hesitation in recommending them based on the product, value for money and their face to face assistance/support.

[Cuts]

cool, thanks guys i reckon ill go one of those michael auto parts golpher ones.

[RiceburnaGTV]

JAR rads are still asia cores with welding done here.

Also i highly doubt that a leaking ebay rad will kill your motor. (unless your totally dumb and cant read temp gauges)

I get my cores out of Taiwan (which is kind of the new Japan) and the USA at the moment now the dollar is strong I had too many probs with Chinese cores being damaged upon delivery(often with perfectly intact boxes)

Michael from Golpher is a great guy and he sells a great product, I have only resold the Golpher brand and havent sampled the other no name stuff he sells but it has always been a pleasure to deal with him. My advice is, if your going to go the really cheap option is to stick with good sellers because often when the shit hits the fan quality wise english can quickly become a distant second language

At the end of the day you get what you pay for but there are some good bargains to be had out there on ebay.

cheers
Nath

[o_man_ra23]

I bought a cheapo chinese radiator for the wife's excel ($150 delivered) from fleabay. The mouldings (plastic end tanks) were close, though somewhat different in a few ways. Only 2 gripes I have about it is that the mouldings for the nuts to hold the thermos on don't hold the nuts in on half of them (the other half are perfectly fine), and there is no drain plug like in the original. Other than that, I can't see it being a bad radiator for a runaround excel, and has kept the car cool in summer both around town and on the highway.

In saying all that, I would never trust a radiator like that in my Celica. Also the warranty on it required me to have a radiator shop install it for any warranty claim, which kind of defeats the purpose of buying a $150 rad. But I figure it is cheap enough to buy another one in the unlikely event that it fails before we sell the car.

[brett_celicacoupe]

i put a $200 S13 alloy rad in my soarer.

seemed to be fine