I think nearly half of all the failures I've had on my cars recently (and that's a LOT of failures all of a sudden this year) have been cooling system related.  Just can't seem to keep coolant in the things.  Brand new hoses rupturing, hose clamps that keep backing off, etc.  No wonder those older air-cooled Porsche's were so reliable...  Anyways, here's the latest in a long chain of sadness for my Mitsubishi Eclipse (which I've only been able to put 1000 miles on since January, due to it repeatedly having to go in for lengthy repairs).

Got home today only to find a note left for me "Your Eclipse is leaking a pink fluid".  Great.  Immediately I thought it was the transmission or transfer-case, but then I remembered that during the overhaul all the Shockproof was replaced with Synchromesh, which I believe is yellow/clearish.  Go out, look at the car, sure enough, there's a stream coming from under the car, headed for the middle of the garage.  Trace it back and it's coming from right under the oil cooler!?  Huh, power steering fluid maybe?  Check the reservoir, it's red, and full...  Hmmm.  A quick call to my mechanic and we decide that it's coolant...  I forgot that when I had the flush and fill done that the car was going to be switched from green to orange coolant...

Not sure exactly which connection was leaking.  On the bottom hose for the oil cooler, both clamps were just the tiniest bit loose, and they were wet.  However, the one tube was also wet a little ways up above the clamp, up to a bracket, but NOT above it.  The lower clamp on the upper oil cooler hose was still tight.  The upper hose was completely dry, no signs of any leaks anywhere.  However, the big surprise came when I tried to tighten the upper clamp on that hose...  The hose clamp was broken (this hose clamp was put on less than 2 years ago)! The screw appears to have snapped, and there's no tension on it whatsoever! Argh.  Wonder why it's not leaking up there?

Sigh.  Going to take it in sometime in the next couple of weeks and have both of those little hoses professionally replaced with some nylon reinforced hose (currently stainless steel braided, which appears to have been a mistake).