A second temporary BMW 528i upper radiator hose repair
Posted By RichC on November 8, 2016
Besides being distracted on Tuesday watching the general election news, a call from my son Taylor brought me back to reality. I scrapped my afternoon plans and drove down to 
Clermont County where he works to "try a second time" to make a temporary repair (the first one was Sunday night). There is a ridiculously fragile BMW E60 upper radiator "tube" (the part between the hoses in the parts photo below) and it failed for a second time.
He was in downtown Cincinnati for a Planners meeting and when he drove back to his office in Batavia he noticed a loss of coolant again. The low cool light came on, but he did make it back to his office without overheating or the evil red engine light (not really sure his car has that?) Whew!
This time I came prepared with a couple options and additional coolant. One thought was to use a copper icemaker line and the other to try and reseat a brass tube back in the "egg shell" like plastic pipe that runs along the top of the radiator (who designed this thing? They should be fired!) Thankfully the repaired tube still works even if it is about 2" shorter since there are flexible rubber hoses on each end. I’m still not confident in the temporary fix, but Taylor confirmed it held for his drive home from work. Hopefully he can get an order into Amazon or to another German Auto Parts store for his BMW 528i — a quick look has them priced between $30 -$60 … genuine BMW parts being at the top end (seeing the poor original quality, I’d be tempted to give the aftermarket part a try!.)
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