Busted Radiator

[blubusdrvr]

Pulling out of a gas station (at normal speed) there was a large dip (as I discovered in hindsight). The nose bottomed out. Checked out the car and definitely needs paint/ minor bodywork on the bottom of the bumper cover. A day later I noticed a pool of G12 under the car. Sure as sh#t, there is fluid steadily dripping from the main radiator. I didn't hit it THAT hard. I would equate it to hitting a speed bump at about 5 mph. ??? WTF? Has anyone ever experienced or heard of this happening?

[simple_king]

Very common to hit something and break it. It's not a tank so you have to be on full alert when driving. I drive very low and I swerve anything that looks like it can do damage. Most I have gotten are two bent wheels.

[blubusdrvr]

I can understand a bent wheel on a pothole or a busted grill if I hit road debris etc. A busted radiator from lightly bottoming out the nose is something else. I'm guessing after almost 10 years the radiator was beginning to fail and this just helped it but I just had never heard of it before. It's not like I was in an accident or rear ended someone. Just curious how many other radiators had been replaced out there.

[d2a4]

I can understand a bent wheel on a pothole or a busted grill if I hit road debris etc. A busted radiator from lightly bottoming out the nose is something else. I'm guessing after almost 10 years the radiator was beginning to fail and this just helped it but I just had never heard of it before. It's not like I was in an accident or rear ended someone. Just curious how many other radiators had been replaced out there.

How "lightly"? I don't know how you judge lightly or hard. IIRC, the bottom & top of radiator is plastic so any bump may cracked.

[wednesday]

Mine is daily driven in all sorts of weather, traffic and roads. I have ran over quite a few pot holes unintentionally due to visibility or some other reason unfortunately. Bad wheel bearing is all I have experienced so far. I have actually gotten softer tires on purpose over the years because I daily drive it and would rather have cushion against potholes. I am pretty blunt about notorious Audi "engineering" whenever I have to pay large sum to fix for all sorts of crap, but to be honest, radiator is not something I have heard to be common. I have also hit quite a few snow banks during winter

This is far fetched, but it can't hurt for me to say it, so I will say it, there is a weak connection from radiator hose that is in a "Y" shape, but it is not at the bottom and rather up top on passenger side. That is known to crack and break. Have you found the crack at the bottom somewhere already?

[blubusdrvr]

How "lightly"? I don't know how you judge lightly or hard. IIRC, the bottom & top of radiator is plastic so any bump may cracked.

Hard enough to hear it scrape (like a speed bump or scraping a parking curb) but light enough you couldn't really feel it. I'm really shocked.

[Striddy]

I've been having the same issue. I did not hit anything to damage the radiator but there is a constant drip coming from the bottom of the radiator. I believe that the fluid is coming from somewhere else and just running down the radiator. It first happened after a 7 hour ride in hot weather. After the drive, I parked her in the garage and in the morning, there was a significant puddle under the car. Is this Y-connection that fails accessible?

[65vetteC6]

I've been having the same issue. I did not hit anything to damage the radiator but there is a constant drip coming from the bottom of the radiator. I believe that the fluid is coming from somewhere else and just running down the radiator. It first happened after a 7 hour ride in hot weather. After the drive, I parked her in the garage and in the morning, there was a significant puddle under the car. Is this Y-connection that fails accessible?

Its on the passenger side next to the valve cover. Connects right to the top of the radiator.

[wednesday]

Part for reference..
https://jhmotorsports.com/shop/catal...rs4-p-440.html

Location for reference:
https://goo.gl/Yj4Kvy

[blubusdrvr]

Update. The core of the radiator is cracked. (Upper hose, etc also) Not only that but the core support is bent (and all the related brackets). We went out to the "crash site" and the angle was such that it just happen to bottom out right where the support is. Mother-Effer! Got my insurance company involved and they're leaning towards totaling it! HA! I bet they're looking up values for A4's. That'll be a shock for them.

[d2a4]

Update. The core of the radiator is cracked. (Upper hose, etc also) Not only that but the core support is bent (and all the related brackets). We went out to the "crash site" and the angle was such that it just happen to bottom out right where the support is. Mother-Effer! Got my insurance company involved and they're leaning towards totaling it! HA! I bet they're looking up values for A4's. That'll be a shock for them.

Never say "lightly" :-)

[wednesday]

Damn. All the gravitational pull from super moon took your small hit to a whole different level. Nuts. If they give you your money's worth, then can't beat that either. But it can't be that costly, can it?

Thinking out loud: no airbags went off.. no engine/transmission cracks.. bla bla.. weird. They really must have been looking at a4s lol.