I'm being very pedantic here, before anyone says it - but my car was paid for by a sum of money I can't see myself coming to again any time soon, so it has to last.
I changed the coolant, didn't get all of it out and my Dad flushed it through with a watering can (I wasn't going to do this myself as I'd bought de-ionised water to use but what's done is done)
So, my cooling system now has a mix of pure water, garden tap water, and an unknown amount of coolant.
I put in approx 3.5 litres of 50:50 mix so the coolant ratio's not going to be too low.
I'm just wondering whether to try again...like I said, pedantic, but can't afford not to be!
Still not convinced by 'for life' either. There was a noticable difference in the stuff that came out and went it!
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Try again - I would, do you live in a hard water area, I'd prefer to know it was right.
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Yes I do sadly!
Can anyone confirm if having the car up on ramps so it was facing upwards would have an effect?
The Haynes says for a full drain you have to disconnect the oil cooler hoses which looked a bit scary so I thought I'd try literally dumping it out and refilling.
Still, at least it was straight forward and no messing about with bleed points.
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If you want peace of mind you will have to do it again but if it was mine I wouldn't unless the car was still under any warranty.
I wouldn't keep coolant for life either and a re flush and fill in 2 - 3 years time should be plenty soon enough.
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Long out of warranty - a 2002!
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And how would you propose to flush it to remove 100% of coolant? IMO its not possible, a small amount will always remain.
Whats important is clean water and quality coolant. Re freshed every 2 - 3 years and it will be in better condition than untouched "for life" stuff is after 4 or 5 years.
The difference between de-ionised water and tap water is minimal over a couple of years. I have known cars run on "any old water" and have had no serious coolant problems. The only thing thats likely to happen is corrosion of cooling system and attached problems with this circulating and blocking waterways etc.
Keep a good eye on condition of coolant (whatever water is used) and no problems .
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Ah OK - I know of several cars like those as well! They run on the normal blue stuff though and I wasn't sure if G12 needed more stringent attention to detail as it's the advanced stuff.
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different coolant (slightly) but same principals
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"And how would you propose to flush it to remove 100% of coolant? IMO its not possible, a small amount will always remain."
It's possible to remove the old Coolant/Anti-Freeze from the system on a cold engine with a garden hose and the water pressure from the main is strong enough to do the job.
Remove the Thermostat and flush & back flush using the pipes that one goes into the Maxtric Heater and the other one that comes out from there, should be one of each on both side, again depands on the makes of your car, also flush from the top of Radator and do the other way round starting from the bottom hose and water coming out from the top of Radator, same for doing the Expansion Tank through to the Thermostat area and keep doing that on all few times under it's running with clear water. You will be very wet, but it's worth it!
Then leave it alone for overnight and let it drip dry, on the next day put all the hoses back tight and top up with neat Coolant/Anti-Freeze about half a pint to mix the rest of water in the system, then do the 50% of each topping up.
HTH.
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Drain out as much as you can. Make up a mix of 50:50 concentrate:pure water and fill it up. Run engine until thermostat opens. Allow to completely cool down. Drain and then fill again with 50:50 mix. This should have changed about 75% of your coolant and you should be OK.
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and then remove the heater radiator and be surprised how much old coolant is still in there !
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last comment was regarding granada cos worth; not aprilia.
He too seems to agree a majority mix is quite sufficient
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The one important thing to note is what is the vehicle? certain vehicles need certain types of coolant & for instance if you mix pink coolant with blue coolant It will shorten the life of the engine through chemical reaction as there are various types on the market. I agree antifreeze isn't for life as electrolosis bulids up in antifreeze and this can be tested with a voltmeter using mv scale! belive it or not & the coolant becomes less efective.
If you have used the same antifreeze I wouldn't worry but have the level of antifreeze tested as too much is just as harmfull as not enough
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Thanks injection doc, yes I was sure to use the same G12+ coolant from SEAT as I've seen what mixing coolant can do...not nice!
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To flush and refill my Astra mk4, I just undid the drain tap on the radiator and took the expansion bottle cap off (older cars needed the bottom hose taking off as they didn't have drain taps). Once the coolant had stopped running out of the drain I refilled the system with the drain open, running the engine on idle for 5 minutes, constantly topping up the expansion tank.
Having closed the drain, I just added half the system volume, by calculation, with red long-life (5 years, not for life) coolant, and then topped up with plain water.
The use of distilled water is over-rated - even in a very hard water area the amount of calcium in 6 litres isn't a lot - it's not like domestic hot water systems where fresh water keeps being added and heated.
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