Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkhbird
Yes, it is a Spartan chassis. In fact we had a major coolant hose failure yesterday so I can’t wait to hear how that may be related to the DEF head failure.
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I doubt your coolant hose failure is related to the DEF system, unless the shop that replaced your DEF head somehow damaged one of the two coolant hoses that attach to the DEF head unit. Assuming that isn’t the case…
Our 2018 Entegra Cornerstone is on a Spartan K3 chassis. Your 2018 Dutch Star is, I assume, on a Spartan K2 chassis, but what follows is probably just as applicable to a 2018 coach on a K2 chassis as it was to our 2018 coach on a K3 chassis.
On your chassis and mine, there are a number of “coolant hoses” – some large diameter hoses between the radiator and the engine, and a number of smaller diameter coolant hoses that run to the DEF tank & back, to the dash heater core & back, and in my case to an Aqua-Hot hydronic heating unit & back. Your Newmar will have an Oasis hydronic heating system rather than an Aqua-Hot and you may or may not have coolant hoses running to the Oasis unit & back. If you know the particular hose that failed, please post that.
In our case, we were traveling through Montana on state highway 200 in late August 2019. The coach had just under 24,000 miles on it at the time. A warning appeared on the dash indicating engine overheating. VERY fortunately, we were only a few miles from a rest stop. Once there, I determined the problem was a ruptured “heater hose.” I put “heater hose” in quotes because the particular hose that ruptured ran from the engine to the Aqua-Hot, but the same brand of hose was also installed by Spartan between the engine & the dash heater core and between the engine & the DEF tank.
The rupture in the hose was adjacent to where the hose connected to the input side of a shut-off valve. As such, I was able to cut off the ruptured section and reattach the hose to the valve. From there, I refilled the cooling system with water from the rest area and we were able to continue on.
Attached are two photos of the ruptured hose. The second of the two photos has a dime inserted into the damaged area of the hose to provide perspective.
The third photo is a length of the hose Spartan originally installed on our chassis. As you can see, the hose is 3/4” I.D. heater hose, the manufacturer is a company called Thermoid and the hose was made in the USA. So far so good. But when I looked up that particular heater hose in the Thermoid catalog, I determined it was spec’ed for light duty automotive use. The catalog listed various other heater hose options, all of which were rated for heavier duty use than the hose Spartan chose to install. As you might expect, I was not happy about that decision.
As luck would have it, we were headed for Spartan for other work. I contacted them, explained the problem, and was assured they would take care of it once we arrived. We almost made it to Spartan’s facility in Charlotte, Michigan before a second failure of the same hose occurred. Fortunately, that failure was on the output side of a shut-off valve, so I was able to solve that one simply by closing the shut-off valve.
In any case, Spartan did the right thing and replaced ALL of the Thermoid heater hose on the coach with significantly higher quality hose. If your hose failure turns out to be 3/4” I.D. Thermoid heater hose I would highly recommend you ask them to do the same on your coach.
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