Mishimoto Automotive Sold me an expensive aluminum radiator (really made in China) that did NOT ever work. New Castle DE
I brought a Mishimoto Automotive aluminum radiator for my 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 in 2017 from XtremeDiesel. I installed this radiator in the Fall of 2017 and immediately started loosing antifreeze. But I did not know why. There were no puddles under my truck. By 2018, I was having to buy more antifreeze and ad it on a weekly basis.


I finally in 2019 by examining my engine cavity, decided to wrap paper towels around the cap. And every week when I went to get a load of hay it would be wet and the same color as the Mishimoto antifreeze. I started examining the cap and figure out that the tabs that hold the cap down were just flat bent aluminum and were too high to hold the cap closed. So I tapped them down, trying to get them to seal and hold in the fluid. But NOTHING worked as this flat aluminum tab is way to weak to hold it's place, regardless of where you put it. It has "1.3 Barr" on it, but it is NOT even close to that. 


The radiator was not leaking, the cap was and it does NOT appear to be individually defective. It appears to just be a Crappy worthless design & manufacturing. There is NO way this cap could have ever worked based on it's design & materials. 


So I called them. and they suggest that I tap down these tabs, which I told them I already had. So they told me to go out any buy a radiator cap for a Subaru WRX 2005 model and try that. I asked if they had a cap that would work that they could send me and I was told FLATLY NO. They had nothing to solve this problem. So much for their falsely claimed Warrantee. It's 100% Bullsh*t Lies.
For any warrantee to have any value, it must be honored when it's needed, not just before you start legal action action against a company that has screwed you to help their legal team. This is NOT an open ended agreement that they can do just when ever it please them to. They have to honor their warrantee when they have been informed that their product(s) have FAILED. They did NOT!


I can not drive more than about 75 miles before I loose too much coolant/water to go any further & I'm having to put in about 24 ounces ever time I drive it. I can't even leave my local county. So I went out and bought a 1.3 bar racing radiator cap for a 2005 Subaru WRX for $35 and it would NOT seal the radiator either. I lost more through that cap than the crappy aluminum one. 


When I got this high dollar radiator that made all these claims of being 33% better, it was made in China, NOT Japan. The size is 1.37" thick core, which is even less than stock's 1 â…", so how can it be 33% better. It is NOT even as good as Stock & never was. And that was using their way "overpriced" antifreeze too. Compared to Evans, it does NOT come close to that level of performance, but cost about 33% MORE (a Yakusa Premium).
IMHO, this apparent Yakusa company is running a SCAM and selling dysfunctional Crap sandwiched between massive amounts of BullSh*t (False) marketing. Be Aware …. don't be scammed by them.
I'm not some young inexperienced kid. I'm highly educated (Magna c*m Laude in Engineering), experienced, mature and do much of my own work on my vehicles, house, computers, etc ....
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Bubbha G Fats
Big Spring,Texas,
United States
a very predictable response .... "we know nothing & have done nothing" --- like Sgt Schultz Of Hogan's Heroes
#3Author of original report
Thu, July 02, 2020
I figured that I get some some lame response from this Foreign Marketing company and this one makes we wonder if they can comprehend the English language, as I covered most of what they claim to not understand in my posting, all of which they IGNORED, typical.
This particular radiator was NOT leaking. IT was the cheap a*s piece of Junk Aluminum Cap and it took me quite a while to figure that out. I posted a review of this failing radiator on XtremeDiesel (XDP, who I originally bought it from) back in Feb of 2019 and they did nothing. I contacted Mishimoto in 2020 and told them that their cap did not work and which they acknowledged knowing and told me to beat the tabs down, which I had already done, but they are flat thin aluminum tabs and NOT strong enough to hold the pressure. Then they told me to go out an buy another cap from someone else, which I did & it failed too. These caps are a Crappy Design and that is their problem.
Sending me another such piece of Crap FIXES NOTHING and merely WASTE my valuable time as removing/replacing a radiator on a Diesel Truck takes about 10 hours. You have to first remove the Air Conditioner Cooling unit, then disconnect the intakes into the Large/heavy Intercooler & remove it, then remove the Transmission cooling unit, then take off all the Engine fan Shroud, before you can even begin draining the radiator, removing the hoses & then the radiator, then Reversing all that. I am NOT going to Waste my valuable time doing all this work to put in another Mishimoto Piece of Crap radiator/Cap, which this one clearly is.
Mishimoto was only contacted by XDP and began moving after I got mad at XtremeDiesel and told them I was going to take Legal Action. All this motion & posturing after that by both of these companies is what is called "covering your A*s!" … in preparation for their Legal Defense. In other words, it's all BullSh*t just like the Marketing they used to push selling these Crappy Chinese radiator/caps, which were NOT disclosed as being made in China.
When I called Mishimoto several months ago, they did absolutely NOTHING for me. Threw the problem right back in my face. After I exhausted every option that I had, I decided to buy another radiator that worked and dump this crap, which I told XtremeDiesel and they told Mishimoto, but XtremeDiesel completely ignore my best interest and only pursued their own …. again covering their irresponsible butts, after they sold me this Piece of Junk and ignored my telling them that it was a "piece of junk that did NOT work" way back in February of 2019.
Where Vested Interest Lies (money), the Truth so Often DIES (crooked companies LIE).
Pat Muschamp
New Castle,Delaware,
United States
A response from Mishimoto
#3UPDATE Employee ..inside information
Wed, July 01, 2020
Hello and thank you for the review. We apologize for any issues that you have had. We have a full staffed Customer Service team who are always willing to help out as much as possible. If you have experienced a leak from the cap in 2017, we are left wondering why this was brought to our attention in 2020. As with any issues, notifying us as soon as possible will allow us to resolve it much faster and provide a better experience for you, the customer.
As with you concern about where our products are manufactured, we apologize that you believe this is a negative when it comes to our brand. Many products that consumers use on a daily basis such as transportation, technology, and much more are sourced from overseas. We separate ourselves from the competition by overseeing all manufacturing. As with all companies, problems can arise from time to time; how we handle it compared to our competitors is another way we set ourselves apart assuming that the consumer notifies us.
If you are experiencing a leaking radiator cap, we are willing to replace it. Although it is rare to see an issue with one of our products, we are extremely confident that a replacement cap under our limited lifetime warranty would resolve this.