Hello everyone,

I’m going to go pickup a 2015 F Type R, tomorrow morning with approximately 65,000 miles on the clock. I was wondering if it is safe to drive it roughly 1100 miles home if the coolant pipes haven’t been replaced. I tried looking online and I can’t find a real consensus as to when the pipes fail just that they fail.

 

That's accurate. The coolant pipes do fail but not at any predictable time or mileage.. Most failed on my 2016 before reaching 20,000 miles.

 

No way of knowing, just drive it. Take a biggish container of water with you. They don't normally fail in a catastrophic way, just a steady leak with steam showing when you slow down! When mine went, I got home by topping up regularly (after waiting for water to cool each time!) with just 3 litres of water I got hold of. Key is, you MUST NOT let the engine overheat so don't run low. If it goes, just stop regularly and top up. May take an age to get home, but you'll make it.
Chance is, of course, it will be fine and nothing will go wrong.

 

You'll most likely get a strong odor of coolant quite a bit before any catastrophic failure so as long as you don't have that strong odor you should be fine. When mine failed on my 2018, I had several weeks of a steady odor of coolant after driving and parking but no visible signs of failure. No puddles on the ground and no visible leaks under the engine cover--only a slight drop in the coolant reservoir level that I kept topping up. I knew something was leaking but couldn't determine where until dealer finally diagnosed the Y-pipe with a small leak. I had no issues driving it during that time.

However, as others have said, if you *do* have any visible signs of a leak or the coolant level drops rapidly or get an overheat warning, you want to stop and shut the car off immediately.

 

Congrats on your acquisition!

Get a BT OBD2 plug and use the Torque app during your drive with the coolant and oil temperature gauges prominently displayed and set alarms if > 230F.

This is what I use every time I drive.

Pull over immediately if alarms go off and check. From nightmare stories on the forums, permanent engine damage happens very quickly.

 

Looks like I lucked out with an updated pipe

 

Congrats on the car and that it has the newer pipes. There are aluminum versions out there... check out the forums for all the details!

best wishes for LOTS of fun!

 

Thank you everyone!

 

Someone replaced the pipe(s). From the factory the original seamed style were installed up through most of the 2018 model year cars.

 

The trick is dont hit it hard on the way home till you get them replaced with metal ones
Jaguar/Range Rover have the same pipes, watch these videos from beginning to end so you don't miss any tips AJ133/AJ126

 

As posted up thread the best thing you can do is be aware. Check the fluids regularly and just keep an eye on things. Since you know the possible problems you are far ahead of an owner who is NOT!
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