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My antifeeeze keeps leaking out and I was told that I had a hole in my coolant flange, so when I was calling to see how much it would be to get fixed no one knew what I was talking about. I am a woman and I have no idea what I am talking about. I know some things but not this.

So what I want to know is, what is the real name for it. Is it the coolant flange or the water pump?

I have an '03 VW Passat 1.8T. I know it sits behind the engine.

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    Welcome Theresa. Please don't feel self-conscious about not knowing the relatively obscure name for some part you've never realized might exist. Every single member of the site has been in the exact same position plenty of times. Also, feel free to swing by the chat any time you'd like to hang out with a bunch of friendly car weirdos: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/340/the-pitstop
    – Bob Cross ♦
    Commented Jul 6, 2016 at 21:46

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tl;dr: it's really called a coolant flange.

I had also never heard of a coolant flange but it turns out that it's a real part and, based on the video, it's a part that fails around 120K miles (which sounds reasonable for the age of your vehicle.

An example of a coolant flange repair.

Some examples of coolant flanges (which seem to be common for Audis and VWs) can be found by searching the shopping side of Google.

I tend to agree with the position in the video that you should probably purchase VW parts for the coolant side (considering that the engine needs coolant to live and it's under pressure for much of its life).

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  • Good find, Sir Bob! Deleted my answer due to your much superior take on the subject. Thanks for taking care of business. +1!
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Commented Jul 6, 2016 at 22:07
  • And by "purchase VW parts", I take it we mean that OP should get it serviced by a VW dealer (or other VW specialist) rather than by any arbitrary garage, yes? (Reasoning: if I'm reading the question right, OP didn't mention wanting to do the work herself, but merely wasn't getting traction with repair garages, and so was doubting the nomenclature.)
    – Mathieu K.
    Commented Jul 7, 2016 at 3:10
  • I've always found VW parts departments to be helpful. They have full diagrams of the engine bay so you can point to the part on the screen and go "that's the thing I need" and they'll not only give you the official name and part number but also be able to order it (and in many cases, give you it there and then).
    – Steve Matthews
    Commented Jul 7, 2016 at 9:11
  • @MathieuK. actually, I was only saying "make sure it's a brand name part." The brand X part that the video maker was describing failed quickly. It sounds like any reputable garage could install the part properly. Of course, once you're at the VW shop, you might as well have them take care of it.
    – Bob Cross ♦
    Commented Jul 7, 2016 at 9:28
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It's called a coolant flange. Not totally familiar your your engine but there is usually two of them mounted to the engine. They are made out of plastic and are prone to cracking. I had to replace one last year on my Golf.

As the others have said, be sure to get an OEM part since this is not very expensive and the OEM part should last a lot longer than a cheap part.

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