Nothing to mine, but pulled the silica bag in the expansion tank out of a Golf R for the lad who works next door to me.
Is this actually something that needs doing? Or is it a case of a small number of failures on forums making it seem scarier than it is?
Am I right in saying the downside of removing is you then have to replace the coolant every so often whereas with the bag it supposedly doesn't need changing?
Is there a risk of splitting it when removing it and causing the issue yourself or is it quite straightforward?
There have been some cases of the bag splitting, probably not a massive percentage, but if if does split all the little silica beads potentially block the heater matrix up.
If that happens, to sort it out is a bit of a job, far easier IMO to remove the silica bag and every couple of years perhaps empty the expansion tank of coolant and add fresh to give it a boost.
Quite easy to pull the bag out, but I would advise to clamp off the pipe on the bottom of the tank just in case the bag splits whilst your trying to remove it.