antirice

iTrader: (2)

My car has been leaking small amount of coolant underneath the heater hose on the passenger side. I went ahead and try to tighten the hose clamp just a bit (I switched the stock clamps to worm clamps). Next thing I know the hose coupler just snapped in half, right in the middle.

I examined the broken coupler, it's made of plastic. Don't know if that's a common thing for car manufacturer. One half of the coupler is pretty corroded for some reason, the other half looks fine. Took me a while to pry the broken coupler out of the hoses since it's wedged in the hoses pretty good.

Now I know where the coolant leak came from, it wasn't because the clamps weren't tight enough, it's the coupler started cracking, eventually broke into two pieces.

Picked up a new coupler from O'Reilly, which is made of aluminum. I am just glad this happened in my garage, not while I am on the road. Anyway just wanna share this to give everyone a heads up. My car has 80K miles.

SonicVQ

Thanks for posting this.

Keep in mind worm gear clamps are not used by the factory as they apply much more force on one side of the clamp where the worm gear resulting in uneven clamping force around the hose.

Can you post a picture of where this coupler is? I can't picture it.

antirice

iTrader: (2)

Coupler is at the inlet hose on the passenger side, right between the 2 clamps.

But most likely the coupler would not just broke off. You will first start seeing small coolant leaks. Don't ignore it like I did, learned my lesson.