Jim S.

Hi All!
New member, long time XJ owner. While replacing my battery yesterday (original owner, 2001 factory ordered XJ Limited, 167K) I noticed that my coolant hoses are looking a bit long in the tooth and even leaking a bit at the thermostat housing. I would like to replace ALL the coolant hoses with new. The Thermostat housing is pretty well crude up and didn't clean well, so may replace that with new as well.

We depend on the XJ a lot and I try to do the best by it when doing maintenance. My question in this regard is whether it is worth the extra cost to replace the OE rubber hoses with aftermarket silicon hoses. I figure it probably is but but I like getting real world feedback whenever changing something from stock.

Thanks in advance, looks like a great forum!

Jim S.

Morat

Personally I use silicon if it's a guaranteed fit. It lasts longer and doesn't go all fragile like stock rubber.

msumms

the red mishimoto ones look awesome but they're $100+! i went with some continental oem fit cause i could get everything from one place for a fraction of the cost. 20-30% of the cost means you can replace it 3-4 times at which point those silicon hoses might be looking long in the tooth as well. but the red ones look pretty cool.

jordan96xj

The best hoses are the ones you have on-hand in your spares-kit when one fails. So I recommend the affordable kind, but also having spares. Though, like most, I'll admit that the silicon hoses look great.

Jeepwalker

If you stick with a quality Gates (Goodyear maybe second), you'll be good for a long time. If you buy OEM, you might be getting a re-branded Gates, but at least you'll be guaranteed a certain quality. Gates hoses should last a LONG time. Don't buy like Dayco or other off-brands. Dayco is better than they used to be, but you get what you pay for. I believe NAPA hoses are Gates. Sure Silicon hoses are good, and if you can find a good $$, go for it..

Ralph77

I believe so too. Not to mention their water pumps and pulleys.

downs

Napa hoses and belts are from Gates. Good stuff.....for now anyway with today's economy you never know when a store is going to switch suppliers at the drop of a hat.

If you go though Rock Auto for your full set of coolant hoses you can save 40 bucks or so over buying local and that's going with Gates branded hoses. FWIW One of the "gates" hoses I got from Rock Auto had a NAPA tag on it.

Jim S.

Thanks for all the responses. The Gates/NAPA info is just what I was looking for. The OE hoses lasted over 160K, so the Gates/NAPA hoses look to be the best bang for the buck and there is a NAPA parts store about 5 minutes from my house.

Thanks to all who responded!

downs

Yeah people like to discredit OE parts but many times I've found they simply last longer.

Like my wife's 2012 Honda Pilot. OEM halfshafts were like 350 a piece. Aftermarket was 80 or so. I went aftermarket just due to the extreme price difference but they started going out after about 15-20k miles or so. The originals lasted 150,000. So bit the bullet bought the OEM Honda halfshafts and they'll probably last till we get rid of this car.

dave1123

Yeah, but sometimes you get stung. I replaced my lower control arms on my WJ 3 years ago with Moog and the bushings were shot last month! You used to be able to buy American manufactured parts and never have to replace them again. Not so anymore. I bought Heavy Duty Moog this time and they were still made in China! I WILL say they replaced them free.