Community Forums

Gary.Jones · 06-10-2015, 06:30 PM

I know some people have been counting, so I thought that I would let people know that I am picking up my Anthem from Southern Plains Cummins Coach Care in Houston, TX after having Cummins check my coach on the way back from Kerrville. I had been seeing small patches of wetness on the upper half of the "radiator" when looking through the louvers, and the shape would change sometimes one day to the next, and some days, no wet spots at all. But I talked to Spartan and sent them some pictures to them of what I was seeing, and they said, go in an have the radiator pressure tested. We did that on the way back. I was convinced by the time I got to Houston that it was not a problem, but they pressure tested the radiator and there clearly was a small leak which was down near the bottom. If I looked in the louvers and looked down as far as I could, I could see the wetness.

So, Spartan provided a new radiator and Coachcare put it in. It took about a week for the radiator to arrive and be installed. Hopefully, that ends my problem.

Now I learned a couple of things
1.) The radiator we see from the outside is actually two different units, one sitting on top of the other (the upper half versus the lower half). The top "radiator" is actually a cooler for air from the turbo and has nothing to do with coolant. That was not the problem.

2.) In the context of all of this, I needed to talk to Joyce about this and some other problems and she told me that she realized there was a radiator problem on some units back early in this year, and started to talk to Spartan when she saw a lot of owners talking about problems. She says that Spartan has sent roughly 10 radiators back for metallurgical analysis to try and determine what the problem actually is. I had the people here read through the material from Spartan and my radiator was going to be shipped back to them for analysis also.

3.) I was VERY impressed with Southern Plains Cummins CoachCare in Houston and I am glad that I decided to come here. If a guy said he was going to call me back, he did every time. If they said they were going to do something, it got done without me having to follow up, and it was done the day that they said it would be done. It is located right off the I-610 loop. Very professional operation. I recommend them. They kept the coach plugged in all the time, even in the shop. If my problems with the radiator are now over..... I am going to be a happy man. We were about 5 hours from home when the problem was diagnosed, so we simply drove home and then came back when it was fixed.

4.) The fix didn't cost me a dime.... only time. The labor charge to Spartan was about $1800, and don't know the cost of the radiator as that cost was subsumed by Spartan and never discussed with me. The shop hourly charge for RVs is $140 per hour.

The new radiator "looks" very different than the old one.... The old one was sort of gray.... the new one is black.

Gary

HzrdUs · 06-11-2015, 12:48 AM

Gary what month was your Anthem built? I see where you said early models had issues

Gary.Jones · 06-11-2015, 06:11 AM

My internal tracking list says that people that took possession in late 2014 and early 2015 were the ones that were reporting leaking radiators most often. I know there were earlier ones, but the concentration seems to be the latter quarter of 2014. I could be wrong ... as others chime in, we will clarify.

Joyce was saying that she started to note that owners in late 14 and early 15 were informing them and talking about problems on forums like iRV2. If you search for radiator, you will find several threads on here in the early part of 2015 dealing with the issue.

Gary

DebbieMH · 06-11-2015, 08:17 AM

I took possession last December, so guess I'm in that category. I'm heading to Spartan in July for owners training, I'll have them check. Hopefully will be ok between now and then. Anything to look for other than wetness?

Gary.Jones · 06-11-2015, 10:29 AM

The radiator sits in a tray at the bottom that you see below the fiberglass and paint and louvers. That is the bottom of the radiator. You can see the tray from outside. Coolant was visible in that tray and from the bottom of that tray looking up from the ground. Also discovered the sight glass on the coolant reservoir was cracked and was leaking. Tried to talk Cummins into the new style sight glass this morning but all they had was the bubble type replacement. The new one does not leak

Gary

voltdoc · 06-12-2015, 05:44 AM

My first radiator leak was the original, took possession 4/13 so chassis build late 2012?

The original began leaking and was replaced 6/2014 - the second radiator began leaking 9 months later and was replaced 5/15.