Clean your radiators!
 

I am sure that everyone has already heard this, as have I, but today I finally did it. For reference, my car is an '03 with 50k miles. I noticed that even though I just flushed and refilled the cooling system a couple months ago, it seemed to run a bit warm in hot weather. Wow, what a mess I found. I would say that easily 10-15% of the condenser and radiators were completely blocked, and twice that was partially covered. I found leaves, bugs, rocks, part of a bird (yuck), and all manner of garbage packed in them. The surprising part was the amount of junk between the condenser and radiator.

While the job took me over an hour, most of which was spent cleaning everything, I think it was time well spent. I think that while I might not make this an annual service, it probably should be done every 20k or so.

Attached is a picture of one side. The half of a bird was on the other side.

Steve

I had quite the dirt collection when I did mine too, at around 48,000 miles. Good suggestion to do it every second or third year, as it's really very easy to do.

Every two years I think is the recommendation. If everyone cleaned the radiators we would of found Hoffa by now.:D

Op, how did you get them clean? Leaf blower or did you have to power wash them? Second time I did mine, they wasnt too much in there. Planning do this again on my new Boxster shortly.

Yes it's a good project for the winter months (after all the leaves fall off the trees and get sucked-up by our Boxsters).

http://986forum.com/forums/diy-project-guides/35557-how-clean-radiators-easy-way.html

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/29432-radiator-cleaning.html

http://986forum.com/forums/performance-technical-chat/46781-clean-out-those-radiators-wow.html

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/47650-clean-radiators.html