I turned on the AC but it wasn’t working. I also felt feeble vibrations on the car’s steering wheel.
BHPian myavu recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
On May 16th Beaty celebrated her 12th anniversary.
Everything was going smooth until the 19th evening when something went wrong which could have ended catastrophically.
As usual, I was driving back from the office. Everything was normal until Sheikh Sarai red light. The light turned green and I started moving. Immediately felt something was not normal. There was a feeble vibration on the steering. I turned the AC on and there was no cooling at all. The very next moment engine-overheat light turned on. Immediately I disengaged the clutch, turned off the ignition and coasted safely to the left side of the road just after the Madangir traffic light (2 km away from home). It was close to 7:40 pm and the traffic was normal. I opened the bonnet to find that the Coolant Tank was empty. One of the tank’s inlet pipe nipples got snapped. Called a few old Metro Chevrolet SA and Technicians.
They advised me to let the engine cool down, fill it with water and drive carefully back home and report to the service centre Okhla the next day. Bought 3 litres of Bisleri and after 1.5 hours (ambient temperature was close to 40 degrees) filled 2 litres of water and drove back home. Next day filled 1 more litre of water and reached the service centre by 9:00 am. Car was attended to immediately. They replaced the tank, flushed the coolant circuit and filled 4.3 litres (half a litre was lost due to bleeding) of TOTAL for GM coolant. As per Alam (Technician), this is a common part failure in Beat and Cruze while ageing. OEM Tank nipple had a simple plastic extrusion. The newer one has a metal lining inside for rigidity. Wallet damage 3200/-
Snapped Inlet Nipple
New Coolant Tank
Metal lining
Here’s what BHPian sajjt had to say about the matter:
Mine was damaged by the AC technician while he was replacing the High / Low-Pressure Line to fix a gas leak. I couldn’t find a replacement that time but my technician was smart enough to fix it using heat resistant glue which is still going strong. I ended up with a compressor replacement for the permanent gas leakage and the total damage was 10K+ installation. The good thing was that I learnt how to recharge the gas as a DIY during this time.
BTW, I sold off my car the very next day & booked Kia Carens which is yet to be delivered.
Your car is in mint condition, congrats for that. I lost interest in mine once its rear started bottoming when fully loaded even after the springs were replaced. This is almost common for all hatchbacks though.
Keyword: Had to stop my Chevrolet Beat & wait for 1.5 hours due to part failure