There are lots of plastic parts under the hood of an automobile these days, and they'll actually last longer than metal in most cases if you take proper care of them. Don't spray anything under the hood; don't use any chemicals that might dissolve the plastic, and above and beyond all, take proper care of the cooling system. The reason for that is a lot of the plastic lives in the cooling system.
Now there are these tales going around that if your car has long life coolant, you've got to take it out, got to put the old fashioned green stuff in there to prevent problems such as when the coolant turns muddy and damages the cooling system. Well, that's not really true. What you need to do is take proper care of that long-life coolant, and that means that you do more than use the old-fashioned hydrometer to look at the color of it and to see what its freeze protection is. So you can look like brand new but yet be very acidic.
That means you need to use pH test strips and you need to do that at least twice a year. You're going to check the pH. When the pH drops below manufacturers' specifications, you need to change the coolant. The system needs to be flushed and new coolant of the proper type put in it.
What are you trying to avoid? Well you're trying to avoid problems like we had with this plastic tank radiator which developed a crack, and that crack leaked, and as it leaked it collected down at the bottom and as you can see there is literally nothing left of this radiator. So that's a big problem!
Another problem, if you don't take care of the cooling system, many water pumps these days have plastic impellers, like this one, and it cracked! It literally fell apart inside the car. That caused the engine to overheat, and the overheated engine blew the head gasket. It's kind of a long sad story, but the bottom line is the cooling system on that car was not properly maintained.
Intake manifolds are another place where you'll find plastic on a lot of automobiles, and we have one here where part of the port in it has collapsed. This allowed coolant to go right straight into the throttle body and down into the engine, and what happened there was it filled the oil with coolant and that damaged the engine. All because of poor cooling system maintenance. So check the P-H. Do it at least twice a year, and never leave the coolant in the car longer than the vehicle manufacturer recommends in the owner's manual.

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If you have a question or comment, write to me.
The address is MotorWeek, Owings Mills, MD, 21117.
Please don't write to `Space. He doesn't know anything...

 

Great information Space.

Something alot of people don't realize is a lot of newer or new cars & trucks now have plastic radiators in them. The information you posted can definately affect a plastic radiator possibly causing it to fail. When you least want it to.

Several years ago I happen to be outside one day working on one of cars. A guy walks up our drive stating he was having cooling problems with his Furd truck.

What had happened was the impeller on the truck was made of plastic and had broke apart. This poor man not only needed a new water pump, but when the impeller failed it allowed the fan blade to lean forward and right into the radiator on his truck.

A very poor design if you asked me. All in the name of saving a few bucks on Furds part.

I repaired the man's truck for me including finding/installing a used radiator for him for which he paid me for my time.
(I'd have taken a date with his daughter... instead)

 

well ya should have asked for his daughter instead of the cash LOL
juast let him know you wont abuse her to bad just want to use her for a while LOL

 

Ouch Micky

We have been telling car owners for years dont wash under the hood of the new vehicles.

 

well ya should have asked for his daughter instead of the cash LOL
juast let him know you wont abuse her to bad just want to use her for a while

Tell him what a couple hours should do it?

 

I remember someone posting GM Part No.'s for GM Engine Clearner and GM Engine Dressing. These must be Plastic Safe.

 

To me it's plain old common sense. I've never washed under the hood of my car or sprayed anything in there. People are either stupid or lacking common sense, IMHO.

 

Only thing I would use on the engine is Protect-all. If it's good enough for vinyl harley seats it's good enough for my engine cover!