View attachment 230246

1 - Remove Bolts from Engine Wiring Harness, 2X, (Note. there is one on the Passenger side and one behind the Harness, towards the firewall). this will allow to lift the plastic wiring harness piece.
2 - Proceed to remove the Coolant Line from the Engine Cylinder Head and from the hose locate behind the wiring Harness.

View attachment 230246

1 - Remove Bolts from Engine Wiring Harness, 2X, (Note. there is one on the Passenger side and one behind the Harness, towards the firewall). this will allow to lift the plastic wiring harness piece.
2 - Proceed to remove the Coolant Line from the Engine Cylinder Head and from the hose locate behind the wiring Harness.

HELLLLLP!!!! I'm at the last step and cannot get the wiring harness loose. I removed one bolt on the left (passenger side) bottom of harness, but I cannot find any bolt holding it in from the back. There are a ton of wires and connectors back there and I don't want to screw anything up. Can anybody provide a clue??? Is there some sort of trick to get this out?

 

Yes, Please check the videos I posted above. If you look at the rubber connector in the photo here, the bolt is about centered to that and buried straight down below and just behind it. I had to put a pad on the front radiator support and place my knees on the radiator area and get my whole body under the hood to be able to see straight down the back of the rubber connector. If you are able to PM me, we can talk on the phone or zoom.

 

Pro tip - I lost an E10 socket getting that bolt out because all the wiring behind there made it difficult to extract my socket extension. Try using electrical tape or equivalent to secure the socket to your extension. Also - try to use 1/4" drive socket and extension because it is slimmer and will extract better.

 

Actually - just watch the short video.

 

The long video is too much.

 

My guy, you're asking the real questions. Obviously another cheap plastic tube would just get brittle again eventually.

My wife just got a 2017 Macan S and it's losing coolant. I presume this hose is the issue. I've got an endoscope camera coming from Amazon to do some investigating. (If you don't have one, get one.. $30, change your life.)

If the original hose is THAT brittle to the point it practically disintegrates, why not run a rubber hose with clamps and a T-fitting? You wouldn't even need to follow the old hose's path.. or remove the old to begin with. Seems like with the breather cowling removed, you have line of sight to the front hose connections without removing the manifold.. that's all hinging on whether or not I can get to the rear hose connection, armed with an endoscope camera and 30 years of Volkswagen yoga contortion skills.

"Lastly, this might sound a bit improper on a Porsche forum, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Has anyone considered replacing the plastic tube with a regular old rubber hose and brass tee fitting? I had another non Porsche where the plastic wye cracked, so I replaced with regular rubber hoses and a brass tee fitting, and I'm sure it will outlast the rest of the plastic lines."

 

I think it's unlikely you'll gain sufficient access without removing the intake manifold. The rubber hose and clamp solution sounds like a viable plan if you can reuse the fittings from the old pipe. If you go that path, please post pictures of your creation.

 

I cannot belive that with all of the Amazing suppliers that we have on this board, @Jon@Flat6Motorsports , @RADHAUS , etc, someone has not designed a better replacement. I am pretty **** sure everyone on here would order one and place it in the trunk.....for that day it breaks....and gets towed.

"Oh dealer, please replace with the piece in the back.....thanks !" LOL
I would buy in a heartbeat !!!

 

I'm with you. Generally, I trust the wisdom of German engineers, but someone phoned the design of this part in from the moon. Driving classic VWs every day for over half my life, I've learned to keep a toolbox full of random parts and materials to never be stranded.

This seems a super easy fix if I'm leaving the old tube minus the ends in place. Minimal hoses and connectors to label and paint mark. There's plenty of room to mount the new flexible rubber hose far enough away from the heads that you're not unnecessarily heating your coolant.

 

I really hope someone posts "Under development" LOL

 

silicone coolant hoses... How about one in silicone for this location?!? With so many Macans on the road they'd surely sell a bunch!

 

Would Silicon maybe have potential to fold ? Block ?

 

fold - as in kink?

If it was a molded hose it doesn't seem as though that would be an issue.


I just searched around and have not yet found a site that lists this particular complicated pipe as available in silicone...

 

Alright. I replaced my line yesterday with my minimally invasive procedure. It was tedious, my back is sore, but instead of being out of $1200, I'm out maybe $150. The whole thing took maybe an hour under the hood and most of that was fidgeting with the rear most hose clamp.

Whether you choose to use my pioneering method or to make a day out of removing and unplugging the top half of your engine, I'd say using the ends from a new replacement part with a 1/4 rubber hose is far superior than the POS stock replacement tube (it must be made of recycled Windex bottles.)

I didn't unplug anything. Whatever the part I listed as 1 is held in by 3 T25 screws. You can set it aside to gain clear access to the rear portion of the coolant tube. If you're limber enough, you can climb up and see the rubber hose clamp on the rear side of the wiring harness. In my case, the tube was kinda cooked into the rubber hose, I cut the tube short enough to pull it and the rubber hose out enough to remove it. (The other nuclear option would be to just cut the rubber hose and put a new one on.)

2 is just your exhaust pressure sensor, I unbolted it for a little more access to the driver's side

3 the throttle body and accordion tube. You'll need a new gasket and some lube. With the throttle body aside, you have clear access to the front section of the vent tube. You can even pull most of the old vent tube out. I was able to remove 90% of mine. It was quite brittle.


I used about 2.5ft of 1/4 hose, 1 T-fitting, 6 clamps, the ends from a new vent tube, 1 new throttle body gasket and lube, some sealant.


I cut the hose to length as I was fitting it into the engine to ensure minimal slack to avoid the hose kinking later one. A side note, if you use the rubber hose method, there's no need to route it back under the wiring harness. You've got plenty of room to choose another path that's far away from heat. If for any reason you had to fix or revise it.. it would take 15-20 mins instead of 8 hours.

 

I like your solution and will do that if I ever need to do the tube replacement again. However, I'm unclear how you connected your new hose to the rubber hose by the firewall. The hose clamp is behind the plastic block with teeth/blades that the tube rests in. Did you make the connection behind that block closer to the firewall? Or in front of the block closer to the engine?

 

You can take your time and cut the plastic tube off the fittings. Just be careful not to cut the o-ring.

This is your access to the rear portion on the vent tube when you remove the part that I listed as #1.

 

@1973vw awesome write-up with this alternative method! Love it!! Quick question, saw you bought a new OEM hose to cut up for the left and right attachment fittings, in retrospect, do you think you could have re-used the original fittings? I assume only the hose got brttle, but fittings might be re~usable? This would save $100 bucks!

You can take your time and cut the plastic tube off the fittings. Just be careful not to cut the o-ring.

This is your access to the rear portion on the vent tube when you remove the part that I listed as #1. View attachment 278891
View attachment 278890

 

So, you're talking this hose assembly, correct?

...and you used 1/4" (coolant? fuel?) hose sections, hose clamps and a brass T-connector to replace the factory plastic part?

And, do you have some phone endoscope screen shots that illustrate the locations - those would be most helpful.


Thanks!

 

So, you're talking this hose assembly, correct?

View attachment 278902


...and you used 1/4" (coolant? fuel?) hose sections, hose clamps and a brass T-connector to replace the factory plastic part?

And, do you have some phone endoscope screen shots that illustrate the locations - those would be most helpful.




Thanks!

There really wasn't too much use for the endoscope aside from fishing out pieces of the old crumbly bits of hose and getting a visual of the clamp behind the wiring harness.

Yes, I used the ends from the factory hose. They have an o-ring on them that I lubed so they didn't roll when I put the hose on. And then you may want to use some type of sealant that won't harden as insurance. The clamps here felt unnecessary but it's extra peace of mind. The T-fitting I used was just a generic plastic one similar to the factory piece.

 

Bravo on your workaround! Meanwhile, how do we possibly approach Porsche corporate and get some sort of reparation for this shoddy engineering that has many owners constantly thinking "when is this going to happen to me"? The part should be re-engineered out of a different material and owners should be given the opportunity to pay a reduced fee (~$500) to have this done proactively.

 

Jeez, just the other day I was wondering out loud what the Macan equivalent was to the Toyota UZJ100 heater "tees," looks like I found it.

Anybody have a parts list for this job? Thanks in advance.

 

Scroll up to review 1973vw's procedure!


Good luck!

 

None so far, we've put maybe 3,000+ miles on it without issue. I appreciate you asking. I've meant to update the thread. Our Macan hasn't lost a drop of coolant.

 

I’ve been smelling a strong antifreeze smell in my garage. I’ll have to take a closer look. Nothing obvious. Reservoir down a bit. warranty ends in July. Dave T.

 

Excellent walkthrough from @Gclasse, thank you! Happened to my Macan turbo yesterday and was thankfully covered under warranty… grateful to have access to this forum to put my mind at ease 🙏🏻

 

I fixed my cracked coolant line myself. Just some observations from a mechanic that never finished his engineering degree..... I don't know why anyone in their right mind would design a v engine coolant steam vent/return line that was made of plastic nor can i understand why they routed it past the hottest parts of the engine around the long way?!?!?? all they had to do was make it out of steel, and make a rubber connector hose following the upper radiator hose. Its clearly made to fail, and generate revenue. Its sad that a company that can do so many great things allows these practices at this price point.

Anyway, All I did was buy a new pipe. Carefully cut the 2 fittings off, put them back in the heads with 1/4" heater hose attached. Then I ran those 2 hoses to a brass 5/16" t, pointed the t straight towards the radiator under the throttle body. Next i hooked another piece of 1/4" heater hose to that. I routed it along the upper radiator hose and right to the bypass valve on the driver's air filter cover. I carefully cut that quick connect fitting from its junk plastic line, and reused it on my new hose. Done, simple, short, sweet, and will outlast my use of this car I'm sure. I probably should have also replaced that 3rd fitting, but I was initially going to do it like the others here and reconnect it at the back of the intake... until I saw the hose runs past the converters, and the air injection tubes, and down the frame rail right above the turbo...geeeez porsche cmon. So I did it my way, and then I fished out and removed all the plastic pieces that remained under intake and removed all the rest of the line except for the steel piece in the back on driver's side. Done in a couple of hours.

 

I fixed my cracked coolant line myself. Just some observations from a mechanic that never finished his engineering degree..... I don't know why anyone in their right mind would design a v engine coolant steam vent/return line that was made of plastic nor can i understand why they routed it past the hottest parts of the engine around the long way?!?!?? all they had to do was make it out of steel, and make a rubber connector hose following the upper radiator hose. Its clearly made to fail, and generate revenue. Its sad that a company that can do so many great things allows these practices at this price point.

Anyway, All I did was buy a new pipe. Carefully cut the 2 fittings off, put them back in the heads with 1/4" heater hose attached. Then I ran those 2 hoses to a brass 5/16" t, pointed the t straight towards the radiator under the throttle body. Next i hooked another piece of 1/4" heater hose to that. I routed it along the upper radiator hose and right to the bypass valve on the driver's air filter cover. I carefully cut that quick connect fitting from its junk plastic line, and reused it on my new hose. Done, simple, short, sweet, and will outlast my use of this car I'm sure. I probably should have also replaced that 3rd fitting, but I was initially going to do it like the others here and reconnect it at the back of the intake... until I saw the hose runs past the converters, and the air injection tubes, and down the frame rail right above the turbo...geeeez porsche cmon. So I did it my way, and then I fished out and removed all the plastic pieces that remained under intake and removed all the rest of the line except for the steel piece in the back on driver's side. Done in a couple of hours.

So, I had the dreaded coolant leak a few days ago. I went to Porsche Kansas City and bought the new coolant tube/vent line. Part number is 946-106-026-60. Retail price $112.57, minus a $16.80 PCA discount, so $95.77. One of the few parts they seem to keep in stock - the parts lady said they go through a lot of them.
Anyway, I showed my mechanic your posts and he basically did the same thing. It looks like he used a different connection to the valve on the driver’s side air filter housing. He charged me $285, which included the 1/4” fuel line, brass T-fitting and hose clamps. I have been driving it for 4 days and it runs perfectly. So, no need to pull the intake manifold and use the old, fragile,
poorly designed vent line. Porsche is a very fine company, but many aftermarket companies have proven that for things such as this, there is a better way. I am shocked that no aftermarket company has come up with a simplified part for this repair as they would sell probably thousands every year.

 

Oh and both of my old fittings fell apart on removal with the oring and half the fitting being stuck in the head. I would not recommend reusing the old ones. At the very least, buy a new generic line off ebay or alibaba for 20-50 bucks to be safe(r). I have seen them as cheap as 19$. I also saw that the cayenne had an oil cooled alternator at one point and the fitting looked awfully similar, might be worth a shot to find an aftermarket one of those just to check the size.

 

This is nice. Did you take photos of your new hose?

 

I took some pics, not great. I'm not anywhere near your level of production sadly. I've watched several of your videos, great work. I didn't want to post here without someone's approval or asking me to. Didn't want to thread jack

 

 

Are those thermoplastic shrink clamps you used? Do you have the link from where you got them?

 

Here's the hose before installing it