Arrived off the first leg of our journey at the hotel in Aurora, Colorado about 9:30 that morning after doing an all nighter drive across Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. They could not give us an early check-in for about two hours yet and we were standing around the front of the Escalade Hybrid wondering whether to go eat breakfast while we await the early check-in, when my travel companion caught the scent of radiator fluid from under the hood. We did an inspection and sure enough there was evidence of a fine spray across parts of the inside of the engine compartment. We could see no leaks and could still see coolant in the surge tank and were stumped to find where the spray might have come from. I noticed that the top radiator hose was soft and collapsible and not under pressure as would be expected from a hot engine right off the highway, and upon closer inspection when I turned the hose to see if it was firmly attached I noticed on the underside of it a long slit as if by a very sharp object that had not cut completely through the hose yet was just deep enough to have cut through the re-enforcing cord in the hose. Apparently there was a pin hole that had formed when the hose was under pressure. We used OnStar to locate us a dealer and send the info directly to the NAV and off we went as we were confident enough not to need a tow.

Arrived at the dealer (this was a Friday) and they agreed it looked like a "factory defect" and there was no problem fixing this under warranty. But low and behold being the hybrid platform, the dealer informed us that there was not that much call for that hose and there was not one available anywhere in the Denver area. They were going to Overnight one in from Michigan and we would be without until MONDAY. Of course they gave us a rental, but being, by this time, late on a Friday they had trouble locating a vehicle. Eventually we got to tool around Denver for my travel companion's niece's wedding in a Chevy Colorado 4x4.

Still I guess this was better than being stranded with a busted radiator hose somewhere in the Rockies or worse yet in the middle of the night somewhere in Iowa or Nebraska.

Well, we got the Escalade back on Monday and all has been well since that.

 

....especially since I thought Denver was one of the big parts depots for GM...

 

Exactly, there is a big GM Service Parts Operation right there in Aurora, CO where we were actually staying.... go figar....

 

can you take a pic of the busted pipe you were talking about? something to watch for?

 

You are now aware of what the expression common in some disciplines "On the bleeding edge." really means!

That is the kind of thing that made me decide not to buy a new Nissan Altima Hybrid last Memorial Day when they were on sale in the San Jose area for LESS than the same vehicle non-hybrid.

I figured there was too much chance of getting stuck in one of the states not "blessed" with sales and service of the vehicle due to no parts or no tech who knew the difference between electron current and conventional current!

I could have had a new one for less than my 2009 TCH (6K miles on it) one that I bought a month or 2 ago.

 

evois: wish I did have a picture. In fact I specifically requested the defective part, but the service rep at the Denver dealer assured me the part would be sent back to "the-powers-that-be" for discussion and lecture and such.

Being a retired GM hourly autoworker and having been a part of such quality discussions in the past (it is an established absolute "No-No" to cut open cardboard boxes of anything rubber like that with a sharp object); I believed the dealer rep and let it go about getting my hands on the defective part myself.

Low and behold, over a week later, after returning home from the trip, I rec'd a message on my cell from the service adviser wanting to make sure everything was ok, and apologizing for not offering to make sure that I ended up with the defective part go figar....

I guess that except for the inconvenience of waiting out the repair, I'm basically satisfied with the service and there has been no harm done to the engine.