Radiator or coolant leak on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox
Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When radiator or coolant leak gets reported
There are 7 reports of radiator or coolant leak on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 27th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 145,000 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $350–$1,900 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 5 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2006 at 145,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 24; the 2006 has 7. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Was idling in car at military check point to get to school in 2012 and fans under hood got loud to cool it down. Went dead several times. Let sit 45 minutes. Checked radiator and was full of water. Barely made it home, going dead all the way. Took to dealer and said could not find problem at all charged me over $100 to check it. For months it would do this off and on. Then the fan under the hood started coming on and would not go off. Then the car would run when I turned the key off. Now in january 2014, the heater is blowing cold air and I have no defrost and the engine temp. Gauge is all of the way to hot. I can only run it for 15 minutes then it goes dead and I have to wait 45 minutes for it to cool down to go another 45 minutes. Really bad for me because it take me 30 minutes to get to work so I have to add another 45 minutes.....that's there and then 45 extra home. *tr
I have a 2006 equinox which I bought in 2010. While I had various "of age" repairs, such as fuel system issues and a fan motor; with the age and mileage, they seemed normal. In 2013 I replaced the EGR valve and transmission speed sensor simultaneously; as the code was for EGR, but would only intermittently kick in the tss code (the car died in the middle of traffic 3 times before I could get the code to stay so we could find the problem). Among looking online for the problem, it was common, but my dealer would not fix without the code. June, 2014, the brakes started pulsating on the car in low speeds. I would have to pump the brakes to get it to stop. Twice, pumping the brakes at an intersection failed, and nearly resulted in a wreck with my daughter in the car. The ABS and tc lights would come on intermittently. I took it to a mechanic: he evaluated each connection and cleaned them, where the ABS harness connects to the main harness. He found no discrepancies. After 2 more months of dangerous driving, and a whole new set of brakes (all 4), online research prevailed once again. This problem was common; and suggested a rather cheap…
I have a 2006 equinox which I bought in 2010. While I had various "of age" repairs, such as fuel system issues and a fan motor; with the age and mileage, they seemed normal. In 2013 I replaced the EGR valve and transmission speed sensor simultaneously; as the code was for EGR, but would only intermittently kick in the tss code (the car died in the middle of traffic 3 times before I could get the code to stay so we could find the problem). Among looking online for the problem, it was common, but my dealer would not fix without the code. June, 2014, the brakes started pulsating on the car in low speeds. I would have to pump the brakes to get it to stop. Twice, pumping the brakes at an intersection failed, and nearly resulted in a wreck with my daughter in the car. The ABS and tc lights would come on intermittently. I took it to a mechanic: he evaluated each connection and cleaned them, where the ABS harness connects to the main harness. He found no discrepancies. After 2 more months of dangerous driving, and a whole new set of brakes (all 4), online research prevailed once again. This problem was common; and suggested a rather cheap…
Also reported on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox
Blower motor or climate control failure
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 7 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 7 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does radiator or coolant leak happen on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 145,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is radiator or coolant leak on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox?
7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed