Insurance Implications of Retrofitting a Transmission Air/oil Cooler

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by aussiblue

Many years ago someone with I suspect a long towbar tongue but no ball or something similar, backed into and punched a small hole through the black plastic grill of my LC Lancer and holed the radiator while my car was parked in a car park (all day parking while I was at work). There were no obvious signs when I returned to the vehicle as the small broken piece of black plastic grill was pushed in behind the grill and it didn't start leaking coolant until the cooling system built up pressure (fortunately the radiator leak was small and I noticed the temp gauge go slightly up and was able to detect the issue when I got home). I had my suspicions about another vehicle that also sometimes parked there and had a tow tongue of the right height but I could not prove a thing and the driver may not even have realised what she had done. Something similar could happen with the FG trans cooler without it being noticed; it has a similar black plastic grill to the LC Lancer where small punch holes may not be so readily evident at a cursory glance. Yes; I would have to be very unlucky to have this happen again.

Totally agreed, under the right circumstances there's obviously a scenario where damage could be done which you wouldn't notice, but the odds are very slim.

Chances are you'd smell the trans fluid anyway, its not like water or coolant which would evaporate, trans fluid has a distinct smell and id say you'd smell/see it or notice the box start to slip long before you did irreversible damage to it and if it we're only a slight leak you'd need to do a considerable journey before you lost enough to notice.

Under those circumstances you probably wouldn't claim it on your insurance as the excess would be greater than the grill/cooler.

When I had one fitted to my BF3 it began leaking soon after as one of the lines weren't tightened up fully, it blew back onto the radiator which being hot and the fluid exposed, gave off a smell I noticed straight away.