Land Rover Repair: Radiator replacement, land rover discovery, radiator replacement

Question
John,

Love the site.  Thank you for running it and keeping a free flow of great information for us out here!

I was curious about the lifespan of an factory installed radiator in a Land Rover Discovery II.  The vehicle has 138,000+ miles on it and is highway driven only.  It just failed, (leaking badly, first cold day of the year, under 30 degrees) 1 month after the Thermostat failed and was replaced.  

Thanks!

Answer
At 100,000 miles or ten years of age, any radiator could fail.  Land Rover is no exception.  The Discovery II radiator is not particularly problematic but at the age and miles . . .

You say the thermostat was changed a month ago.  It's possible the radiator was weak at that time from natural aging, and the stress of wiggling and pulling to change the thermostat pushed it over the edge.

The second and more troubling possibility is that you have an early stage head gasket or short block failure inside the motor that is causing excess pressure to build in the cooling system. That often manifests itself in a rash of cooling system leaks, one after the other as the added stress blows hoses and seals.