Quick hot water cylinder
Oct 11, 2010 14:07:26 GMT
Post by rm on Oct 11, 2010 14:07:26 GMT
Thought this may be of interest for what its worth. We have a fairly new 36i Performance version and like most other current models it has a Quick HW cylinder (heater). The cylinder works well but the little drain valve on one of the the engine coolant connections at the cylinder can be a bit suspect.
Ours would intermittently open slightly and squirt coolant. We replaced it and still had the same problem. (I'm definitely referring to a drain valve, not a pressure relief valve and it wasn't overheating).
Even if working properly they are not very effective as a drain valve, because opening them, without undoing the cylinder mounts and tilting the cylinder, only releases a small amount of coolant. So to drain the coolant from the cylinder's heat exchanger you would need to tilt the cylinder and may as well remove the hose in the process. The other risk with these is if someone puts their hand into the compartment and accidentally knocks the little valve open, you could lose all the coolant. We have replaced ours with a single tail fitting (instead of the T fitting) with the hose directly fitted to it.
As a matter of interest, we first thought the leak may have been coming from the cylinder itself (welds), so inquired about the warranty which is supposed to be 3 years. Yes it is, but the local agent for Quick told us (after talking to Quick in Italy) that the cylinder would have to go back to Quick in Italy to be tested in their lab before they could decide if it was a warranty issue. Glad this turned out to be simple (after much observation of the cylinder under way) and we have solved it ourselves. As we are in Australia we may have been without a HW cylinder for quite some time, with no guarantee that it would have been accepted as a warranty claim.
At the very least I suggest this is something worth checking and if you are confident that you don't need this drain valve in your system it is worthwhile considering replacement with a simpler arrangement.
rm
Ours would intermittently open slightly and squirt coolant. We replaced it and still had the same problem. (I'm definitely referring to a drain valve, not a pressure relief valve and it wasn't overheating).
Even if working properly they are not very effective as a drain valve, because opening them, without undoing the cylinder mounts and tilting the cylinder, only releases a small amount of coolant. So to drain the coolant from the cylinder's heat exchanger you would need to tilt the cylinder and may as well remove the hose in the process. The other risk with these is if someone puts their hand into the compartment and accidentally knocks the little valve open, you could lose all the coolant. We have replaced ours with a single tail fitting (instead of the T fitting) with the hose directly fitted to it.
As a matter of interest, we first thought the leak may have been coming from the cylinder itself (welds), so inquired about the warranty which is supposed to be 3 years. Yes it is, but the local agent for Quick told us (after talking to Quick in Italy) that the cylinder would have to go back to Quick in Italy to be tested in their lab before they could decide if it was a warranty issue. Glad this turned out to be simple (after much observation of the cylinder under way) and we have solved it ourselves. As we are in Australia we may have been without a HW cylinder for quite some time, with no guarantee that it would have been accepted as a warranty claim.
At the very least I suggest this is something worth checking and if you are confident that you don't need this drain valve in your system it is worthwhile considering replacement with a simpler arrangement.
rm