After a dealership where I bought the car suggested replacing various cooling system parts, I took the car to a local indy shop for the work. He wound up replacing 16 parts in the cooling system, including basically every pipe and hose and the water pump. $1700 worth of parts. $3300 total job. Peace of mind: priceless. Driving from California to Canada at the end of this month, trying to prevent the preventable.

 

Well done - excellent ! BTW - did you use metal or just new OE parts? My philosophy now is just each time I start her up I pop the hood and check the coolant... Adds to peace of mind.

 

I'm not sure about the pipes, I didn't check. I just went with whatever the shop was recommending, they seem to know what they are doing. Apparently the outlet flange has been redesigned so it can't come apart as easily as the original, but it is still plastic.