Coolant hoses breaking on 03 ALH

A coworker of mine has an 03 Jetta Wagon with the O1M trans and the small three way connector next to the vacuum pump broke while driving down the highway. It looks like one line goes to the EGR cooler, one runs back to the expansion tank and the other on runs to the upper radiator hose coupling. That of course caused coolant to drain and the car overheat which caught his attention. I helped him try to replace the fitting and in the process broke the opposite end fitting on the upper radiator hose coupling. Part of it is I think the plastic may be brittle but the first one breaking on its own may be something more. The car appears to run fine provided you dump coolant into it. I have around the same amount of miles on my beetle however mine is manual and I have never had this issue. With all of this being tied into the transmission I didnt know if this was a trans related issue or something different. Any thoughts are appreciated. thanks fellas

Sounds like typical heat fatigued plastic to me.

15 year old car, subjected to who-knows-what. I would suggest that perhaps some batches of polymers simply are not the same as some others, even when they come with the same specifications. My wife's '03 Jetta (yes, it is a gasser, but it came from the same plant as many, many other VWs) had a couple of items simply crumble. Some of them weren't carrying coolant either.

So, best procedure is to correct that which is broken and press on. I doubt anyone would be able to provide definitive explanation of the cause of the malady, and if they could, what would you have? The same task of replacement of broken parts.


Oh, well.


Cheers,

PH