Review of Mishimoto Thermostatic Oil Sandwich Plate
 

I wanted to give everyone a quick heads up on my experience with the mishimoto thermostatic oil sandwich plate.

I purchased it through Amazon on July 16 and installed it two weekends ago. I used Mistimoto fittings and their plate adaptor (20mm) to attach the plate while I was installing an oil cooler. (DIY version with a tru cool cooler and stainless lines)

This past Saturday I was on the interstate when disaster struck. I started seeing smoke billowing from the rear of my car. After bringing the car to a safe stop I discovered that the oil level is so low it isn't on the stick.

I called my gf to get a ride back to my house and returned to the car with tools and discovered that the oring in the thermostat cap blew out. (See below pictures)

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/09/10/tunu3u5u.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/09/10/ezatynem.jpg

Being a Saturday afternoon in a small town I could not find a suitable replacement. There are also no specs listed on their site for it so I ended up towing the car to a shop till I can get the correct parts and have the engine evaluated.

Today I have learned that both underbody aero panels have soaked in oil ($127.50 a piece at my Nissan dealer). The spray also got into my front right wheel and has soaked into my brake pads and I lost 5-6 quarts of oil from the engine.

I attempted to call Mishimoto's toll free number and my carrier informed me the call could not be completed. I then emailed their customer service asking for someone to call me as I cannot get through. I received a reply asking what the problem was but no one called. I sent these same pictures to them and after a day of back and forth they are sending me a replacement o ring. The emails carried on so long they weren't able to ship today so now I'm looking at Wednesday before the parts arrive and probably end of the week to get the car back. I called the direct number and tried to talk to the person I was emailing and left them a message and they would not call me back.

I work at an automotive manufacturer and I bright the remains of the oring in for a look by our quality department. They believe that it was improperly installed at the factory which cut the o ring.

For $130 part, I feel this is unacceptable. Perhaps I am wrong but I almost lost (may have) an engine over a simple o ring.

I guess the point of this rant is to serve as warning to anyone thinking of using this part.

WOW! Bummer! :( Hopefully you just lost some oil and not the motor.

Yeah. The dealer offered to pull the pan and check on it for me for little charge since I let them service it. I'm hoping for good news. I'm really disappointed in the service and quality of a company that verbally has a good reputation.

That's Mishimoto for you. They'll come in here and try to spin it, but at the end of the day cheap Chinese parts with zero quality control will cause a problem. Hopefully the motors ok.

Good to know that now. I'm looking for a replacement unit now and an oil pressure gauge. I hadn't read much in the way of negative reviews and fell for what appeared to be a quality product. I will call the $130 tuition money. Got a nice paperweight at the end of the class.

Sorry brother, I hope it turns out well!


If you want the same brand and type plate that Stillen sells, you can buy them for $30-35 shipped

Gotta love those "no questions asked limited lifetime warranty" cHinese parts! mIshimoto will for sure pick up the tab for the $6.5k long block and labor. :ugh2:

Anymore info on those plates? (I'll begin searching as well) and yeah their warranty "only covers the Mishimoto parts". One benefit of the lack of phone support is the email chain. If they try to spin it at me I will post the entire conversation.

I live around the corner from the dragon and right now I don't trust this plate to make a run. I put the cooler in because I hit 260 F my last good run. Gotta have something I have faith in because there is no way to signal for help.

i would really like to see some more pictures of this setup... specifically what it looks like with the thermostat removed. You want to make sure that the threaded hole is even countersunk to accept the oring rather than just smashing it between 2 flat surfaces. If its not countersunk, you want to use a bonded sealing washer to seal that union.

Its hard to say from the pictures... but it really just looks like that oring is totally smashed in there, as if there is no counter bore for it to seal up into.

PM'd

wow what a POS...I feel for you, man.




looks like the section that failed comes pre installed too

Mishimoto needs to step up to the plate on this one and cover any expenses.

At the 0:45 mark in the video. You can see that one is countersunk for the o-ring. Wondering if the OP's is the same.

It's not counter sunk on the plate but I believe they tried to achieve a similar effect by reducing the diameter if the cap. When I can get the plate off the car I will do a full disassembly.
the specs on the oring are 3mm thickness and 15mm inner diameter. It's a beefy oring and to me it appeared it was jammed in the sleeve like you suggested.

It was pre installed and I did not tamper with it to avoid a situation like what happened. They told me the torque spec for that cap is only 10lbs. I'm no ME but that seems low. (I am a EE that grew up a shade tree mechanic)

:roflpuke2::roflpuke2::roflpuke2::roflpuke2:

Sure they will. They'll send him a new O-ring. Or, at best, replace the sandwich plate. Where you at, Tyler@Mishimoto? You guys going to fix the OP's motor if your POS killed it, or are you going to hide?