Which color coolant?

[67_super_sport]

I heard the other day that the green coolant eats aluminum over time and the newer red dosent.<br><br>I know that the newer cars now almost all run the red and most of them have mostly aluminum engines.<br><br>If your running aluminum manifolds should you be worried about the green coolant or is what ive heard bull.<br><br>Ive always ran green without problems but maybe I should change.

 

[wildbill]

;D ;D ;D Mite ask a gm person they had alum motors back in the earley 60's and used green just change it once an a wile and you wont live long enough to see it eat your alum. manafold good luck. : : : Bill 8) :

 

[EricLar80]

Well, it will slowly eat your intake manifold, even if you change it every once in a while, because it is a chemical reaction. But, I wouldn't worry about it really damaging the intake because the aluminum is pretty thick in it, so its not an emergency. However, I would use the red the next time that you change your fluid (suposed to twice a year I think), that way you don't have anything to worry about (if it makes your rad more prone to clogginf or something like that). If you were running an aluminum water pump, like on the newer 5.0 motors, then I would change it for sure, don't want that to go out at the worst time for a stupid reason. Hope this helps!<br>-Eric

 

[EricLar80]

One other thing, if you are really worried about that type of thing, put Deionized water in there insead of tap water. It is purified of anything corrosive. However, you do not want to run distilled water, it is the worst to put in there, it will want to eat everything up. Prestone sells some premade radiator fluid with the water already in it (I know it sounds dumb), it is pre-mixed with a 50/50 ratio (best freezing protection) of DI water. <br> If you really felt like spending a lot of money, you could wash your car with Deionized water and not even have to worry about water spots; you could let it air dry and it would come out perfect because there isn't anything in the water to cause the spots. <br>-Eric

 

[Rustytruck]

All I ever have been told dont mix brands with out chemical flushing the the system the chemicals in some coolant brands dont mix and cause problems. I thought the red coolant was done when they went to environmentaly friendly coolant. The GM dealers dont change the red coolant they run it through a machine to cleanse it and put it back in and add a little and take your money.

 

[JTCamp]

I've always heard put distilled water in the rad. What is up with this? I've never heard of it causing a problem, b/c it is void of mineral content. Unless it absorbs the minerals from the metal, I don't understand why it is bad. Anyone?<br><br>John

 

[rulebreaker]

GM coolant is crap. I wouldn't feed it to the neighbors dog.

 

[GRIZZLY]

[quote author=jtcamp link=board=5;threadid=9523;start=0#68276 date=1033000509]<br>I've always heard put distilled water in the rad. What is up with this? I've never heard of it causing a problem, b/c it is void of mineral content. Unless it absorbs the minerals from the metal, I don't understand why it is bad. Anyone?<br><br>John<br>[/quote]I just found out about it too. Supposedly it promotes galvanic corrosion.

 

[77bronko]

Actually Dionized (DI) water will basically pull any ions out of your radiator and block till it becomes non-DI water. Distilled water is somewhere in between DI and tap water. In any case tap water has minerals which could deposit in your coolant system (big deal?) Also pretty much any coolant is ethelen glycol (unless its the enviromentally friendly stuff) and can be mixed because its all soluable in water anyway. Just dont mix the enviromentally friendly (red) and Ethylene Glycol(Green). and don't use DI, use distilled or tap(not ideal but I never had a problem). As far as aluminum radiators are concerned I never heard of them corroding quicker with the regular green stuff then the red stuff, I am going to ask a chemist here and see what he says.

 

[alex69eb]

The reason for the red and new style coolant dex-cool etc. Ford also uses it now. but the advertising slogan of now 100,000 miles before first scheduled tune-up includes coolant flush the new stuff just lasts longer before needing to be replaced. only valid if the coolant system is completely free of green type coolant. Green coolant is not going to cause your alum. rad. or you intake manifold to leak. if it could wouldn't griffin or be-cool state to only use "this" coolant. Aluminum radiators have been used for years on vehicles without fancy "expensive" coolant. don't waste your money just get the cheap stuff for coolant.

 

[77bronko]

OK I found out what you need is low or no phosphate anti-freeze. It should say on the back of the bottle. It is one of those additives that they put in. Supposedly most new anti-freeze mixtures have no or low phosphate because most cars have a fair amount of aluminum in contact with the stuff.

 

[mlogan24]

Don't know if this is bull or not, but two things I've heard is don't ever put Dex-Cool (the red/orange) inot a system that ran the green, and vice-versa. Appearantly makes for a very corrosive mix. I've also heard from two seperate mechanic buddies of mine, that shops are now starting to see Dex-Cool vehicles with totally annihialted cooling systems. What happens is the owners change out the old coolant and put in new, but they don't evacuate and fill the cooling system with a pressurized system. Air pockets in Dex-Cool systems appearantly allow for massive corrosion on aluminum (in these cases water pump impellers disintegrated and the Dex-Cool soldified into a flaky rust like substance). Again this was all related to me, so it could be BS, but I still think its something to look into to.

 

[c2computer]

I run dex-cool approved red coolant in mine with distilled h20. Never had a problem. The dex-cool is all you can put in an engine with an aluminum radiator I was told. Be Cool also recommends distilled with dex cool.

 

[mlogan24]

Whoops, probably should have mentioned that. Overwhelmingly I've heard it cools better and works well in aluminum. I guess you just have to be aware of some of the potential problems you could have with it.

 

[rulebreaker]

My cousin is a chevy lover and he told me that his 96 Blazers cooling system has been overhauled every year since new. The dealer told him all the problems he's had boild down to the use of Dex-cool. But they keep putting the crap in. My wife's Ford escape says right on the radiator that Dex-cool voids the warenty. GREEN for me.

 

[67_super_sport]

I changed my coolant today. I decided on the cheep green from carquest and tap water. Who cares.