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Australia, Canberra
1 Level
696 Review
43 Karma

Review on πŸ”₯ Spectra Complete Radiator CU13025: Exceptional Performance and Efficiency by Viswanath Badasz

Revainrating 3 out of 5

It works great, but before you start, double check the location of the mounting tabs!

Bought this radiator for a 2008 Chrysler Pacifica. It was advertised as a direct fit replacement, but after installing it I encountered a few issues that I was able to work around, but if it was a direct fit replacement I wouldn't need to do a custom install. First, there is a hook on the bottom of the device on each side that attaches to the car's mounting racks. It's snug by design, but the hooks on the heatsink were either too close together or the gap between the hook and the heatsink housing wasn't wide enough. I had to cut into them to make the slots wider to fit the car mounting racks. There was barely enough material on the tongue to be cut to fit the car's mounting posts. The second and biggest issue I had was that one of the two top mounting tabs that were molded into the heatsink body was about 6 inches higher on the heatsink than it should be. They are simply square tabs with a hole in them for a screw to go through to attach the top of the radiator shell to the car's radiator bracket. If I hadn't been creative enough to make the adapter out of a piece of 1/8" flat steel, 2" x 8", I wouldn't have been able to mount the top right side of the cooler (seen from the side) of the Front of the car), and the radiator wouldn't be reliable enough to use without attaching the right side to something I don't know if it was weird or if they sent me the wrong radiator or whatever but i'm pretty sure all pacificas use the same radiator the part number was correct so there was no reason why the mounting tab was far out of place I would have noticed that before ripping the old radiator out of the car it would have been sent back.The radiator looked very good in terms of build quality.In terms of performance the car actually runs a little cooler than the factory radiator.The original leaked through the pinhole so it was replaced he machine continued to run at the same speed. right temperature. Another thing I noticed about this heatsink is that it had half as many cooling tubes as the original which had about 62 (tubes between the aluminum cooling fins). I was a little concerned that it might not work as well as the original because of this, but it actually works better. I also replaced the radiator cap and thermostat, but I didn't change the thermostat when I changed the radiator, so it wasn't the thermostat making the car a little colder. In the summer I changed the radiator, I've had it for several months. In the summer at 80 degrees and more, the engine stayed a little colder than the original. It's December now and the temperatures are dropping and the radiator makes the engine run much colder than the original. So it works really well and looks well made, but if you buy one of these you might want to check the position of all the mounting tabs before you start taking your car apart. Nowadays you don't just drain the water and loosen a few screws to remove the radiator. The Pacifica has to remove the fans, remove the shroud and other things to get it out, and even with that the heatsink fits really tight so it fits perfectly so all the mounting tabs line up (that is, if they're on the right one location on the heatsink) . Overall, the heatsink looks very nice, but before you take it out of the box, make sure the mounting tabs are positioned correctly. Maybe you send it back!

Pros
  • Parts
Cons
  • Almost OK