Got a 94 3.0 v6 4wd pickup that needs a radiator replacement soon. I still have the oem toyota one still in the truck. Was wondering which one is better? Its my daily driver 7 days a week. Mahalos in advance!

 

well first of all, aluminum is technically a metal.
but, aluminum is lighter than a copper one usually, it also cools ALOT better. but if its just a stock motor, keep the stock radiator. see if it can be taken to a shop and saved. if not, most replacements are aluminum, so no big deal.

 

Copper is more conductive than aluminum. Newer radiators have tighter fin spacing and additional features on the fins to help improve cooling. Any good quality radiator, copper or aluminum, should work fine.

Until recently I would have highly recommended Radiatorbarn.com but they just went out of business.

 

I am using a csf all metal radiator been in over a year no problems so far.

 

I hate Aluminum radiators and will always change to copper and brass as long as it is possible .

If there is nothing wrong it when it is time it will get changed out.

The reason being it is so much easier to repair a copper brass one far from home.

That is my opinion from real world radiator fixes on the road.

 

Have your old one re-cored with a high quality core if you plan on keeping the truck for a long time. Nobody ever listens to me on here even though I've been a radiator repair man for over a decade now. Make sure your old one gets a good pressure test at the radiator shop out of the vehicle to make sure your tanks are in good shape to re-use for the re-core. The original tanks (especially on the v6's) are pretty common on getting cracks,mainly by the fill neck area.

 

While I have to agree on the recore I have yet to find a radiator shop that will do one.

They just don`t want to bother the labor rates here make it far cheaper to just buy a new one. I got told it would be a last resort option and could be as much as 2 to 3 times the cost of a new one

Since most on here build on a low budget

Now Heavy Equipment and large trucks not a problem go figure.

 

yeah it gets pretty pricy because of our cost on the core (you know copper and brass ain't cheap these days) but the time to recore a simple toyota radiator isn't that long. You do want to make sure the core comes from a high quality manufacturer. I am picky and am stuck on one brand out of canada because they are the best I've seen. Then of course your parts have to be in good shape and hope your radiator repair guy knows what he's doing and doesn't skimp on the solder. So yes it can cost 2-3 times as much,but if you maintain it right it will last 2-10 times longer. So like I asked the original poster, how long do you plan on keeping the truck? If you plan on selling it in a year or two then yeah, throw a cheap piece of ˟˟˟˟ in there.