Coolant - generic from Halfords ok in an Astra?

fadetogrey

Is this "oscar" you mentioned last week getting old? if so hes probably a bit like myself long in the tooth slowing down and now and then having the odd "ahem" embarrassing accident with the waterworks:o:o Time for you to do what my wife wants and pension me/him off for a much younger model.:eek::eek:

pinkteapot

This is indeed Oscar. We are looking for a new car but won't have one before we go away and are still going round in circles on what we want to get. If we weren't going for a long trip in him we definitely wouldn't bother getting the work done. I just don't want the radiator to die completely on the way up (don't mind so much on the way down - might delay us coming back to work). We do have Green Flag so we could get it sorted but it would be a pain and could knock onto the ferry connection. I actually have the Green Flag cover that gives me recovery to anywhere we want in the UK. So it would be entertaining to break down five miles from home and demand they recover us up to Orkney. Would get our moneys-worth out of the policy.

Of course if we'd only done the MOT and not bothered having a service we would have been blissfully ignorant of the leak anyway from what others have said.

Cheapest quote I've had from garages is still £188 so we'll weigh up whether to do it or take the chance. We have had the bottle of coolant from Halfords in the boot since the MOT just in case.

mikey72

From the price it would (hopefully) be the twinport 1.6. That's about £120, then the antifreeze.

goldspanners

pinkteapot wrote: »

I'm not DIYing it. Already said that.

Just spoke to the garage - hubby remembered the quote wrong. It was £210 *sigh* Another garage has quoted £188.

Still the question remains whether to change it or drive to Scotland and back and hope the leak doesn't get any worse. That's the part I'm confused about. What would people on here do? (I know you'd DIY it if you did it)

i would think about how much it would cost me to get towed to an unfamiliar garage miles away from home at thier mercy.

pinkteapot

goldspanners wrote: »

i would think about how much it would cost me to get towed to an unfamiliar garage miles away from home at thier mercy.

Yeah, I'm an absolute risk-averse wuss so we've booked it in for tomorrow. Little frustrating thinking we probably don't need to spend the cash but I'll just think of it as part of the holiday budget. Petrol's probably going to cost us more than that anyway with the way pump prices have gone in recent months. We go away the first weekend in June so we can get it done and then use the car for a couple of weekends before we go to make sure all is well.

The main bulk of the drive to Scotland will be done on a Sunday which would make it doubly awkward to find an emergency repair en-route!

I did wonder what Green Flag would do if the leak suddenly turned huge and we lost our coolant on the way; how would they repair it? Wondered if we'd get a free radiator replacement out of them but I doubt it works like that.

vikingaero

pinkteapot wrote: »

I did wonder what Green Flag would do if the leak suddenly turned huge and we lost our coolant on the way; how would they repair it? Wondered if we'd get a free radiator replacement out of them but I doubt it works like that.

The AA sell a parts and labour breakdown cover up to £500 for about £60 per annum if bolted onto one of their breakdown policies.