Has anyone seen this before. While washing my car tonight I decided to clean under the hood a bit. I removed the decorative covers and noticed that the air filter box had looked really dirty, had a milky gray residue that was at one time wet. Upon closer examination I notices this on the top of the radiator...







What do you think could have caused this, I haven't cleaned it off yet as I have an appointment at Lexus tomorrow morning to have my drivers seat replaced.

I have 350 with about 21,000 miles on it.

 

is it a powdery residue? or is it squishy foam?
If it is a foam, i think it could be some form of expanding foam to seal off the air gaps around the radiator (for sound deadening).

if it is a powder, it could be some cleaning agent that you didn't get off when you washed everything (or from the dealer). or maybe residue from a sealant that they put on your paint.

worst case, that may be the color of the coolant when it dries; and you cracked/loosened the seal around your radiator from thermal shock (cold water will do that to a hot engine)

 

It's more of a powdery residue, I am about 99% sure it's dried up coolant.

I didn't/don't use any cleaning agent or spray water under the hood. I just wipe everything down with a damp cloth

 

It is coolant that is leaking then drying up. It may be comming from the upper rad. hose. The clamp is not as tight as it was when it left Japan.

 

yup! i just went under my hood and verified PINK coolant. the radiators in newer cars are made from aluminum and then capped with a hard plastic (like the stuff they make power tools out of). the seam between the aluminum and the plastic is not sealed on your car. take it to the dealer and let them know you smell antifreeze when you walk by your car in the garage sometimes.

 

yea i got that too.

 

there is a tsib for the radiator problem/leak....i remember seeing it as my service advisor was searching for tsib(s) for the 2nd gen IS.

 

oh no'es... see... now i wanna go out and look too, then the only logical conclusion is braided steel lines, but then while i'm at it might as well do the brake lines too... i can see it beginning with the so called, 'its a service mod so its ok', then rational will come in about a K&N set up cuz after all you just need to clean it and reuse, thus saving money. OH YEA a lighter flywheel will cause less rotating friction due to weight thus the crank/rods/pins wont have so much load... and if i'm gonna start reducing driveline weight... dammit

 

it's ok, they don't make the lightened engine parts . . . yet . . .

 

Well I'm getting a new Radiator. They said it's leaking form the top. They are going to keep it over the weekend because they don't want me driving the car. They hope to have the new Radiator in by Tuesday of next week. Now I get to drive their loaner RX350 for the weekend and get it all full of love bugs instead of mine.

 

thats why when i drove off the dealer lot i went straight to NAPA and bought a bottle of ZMax and put it in at 22mi on the odometer cuz you never know...

 

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/02/zmax1.shtm z max does no good.

 

you really don't have a clue do you as to how bussiness work in america... do you know just how much the FTC actually helped zMax? haha my bad, if you did you wouldn't have brought that up.

Use zMax, it works.