Antifreeze issue

SoCalMike > wrote in
:

> TeGGeR® wrote:
>> "Subhabrata Bhattacharyya" > wrote in
>> :
>>
>>> My car is 2000 Honda Civic Value pack (kind of in between a basic
>>> and a LX regarding the trim, but no difference in engine) with 69000
>>> miles on it. The car is Canadian make.
>>> Mostly, I put in highway miles from C'ville to Philadelphia.(520
>>> miles roundtrip)
>>> Thanks a lot for the feedback.
>>> I will do a flush and fill up with Honda Genuine Antifreeze. I am
>>> kind of skeptical about adding a cup or two of tap water to that
>>> water though as suggested by jmattis.
>>
>>
>>
>> Honda Genuine is PREMIXED!!!! DO NOT add ANY kind of water to Honda
>> Genuine antifreeze!
>>
>> And make certain you pull the block drain. Do not neglect this step.
>> There is a quart of fluid in the block that is not drained unless you
>> remove the block drain.
>>
>>
> but if the block drain is siezed or too much of a PITA, dont sweat it.
> the "flush" will take care of it.
>


No it won't. All it will do is dilute the new stuff.

A 19mm socket, a 3ft breaker bar and a bit of grunting will break it loose.
No prob.

--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

SoCalMike > wrote in
:

> Subhabrata Bhattacharyya wrote:
>> My car has enough Antifreeze (green one) in the radiator but little
>> above the min. mark in the tank. I read Elle's post and thought to
>> top it up and contacted Honda dealer to get the Antifreeze. They said
>> they no longer sale the green one anymore. They sell the blue one. I
>> asked whether I need to flush out the old one to put in a blue one,
>> the guy said "sure!" but after a quasi long pause!! So, my question
>> to this trusted group of mine is:
>>
>> 1) Is it okay to use a generic green antifreeze from Pennzoil? (It's
>> about half the price!)



It's chock full of silicates, too, I'll bet! It's *so* economical to save
$10 on antifreeze and spend $500 on a head gasket.


>
> hell no. you CAN use the orange dexcool 100k mile stuff in the silver
> jug. either way, you should drain, run regular water thru for 10mins,
> drain again. THEN add a 50/50 coolant mix.


70/30 antifreeze/water if you refuse to open the block drain.


>
> some peeps here may disagree with the orange dexcool recommendation
> and suggest only honda coolant.



I'm one of those. Mixing long-life antifreezes destroys the long-life
corrosion protection extenders. It dumbs you back down to the default two
years.



> your call. ive used the orange dex in
> a variety of aluminum japanese gas engines over the past 15 years, and
> have had NO problems whatsoever with anything.



Not that you've ever paid any attention to.



>
>> 2) Is it okay to mix it with the old green antifreeze? Does it have
>> any break down period like the way engine oil does?
>
> i wouldnt, no.
>
>> 3) Can I use the double distilled, deionozed water that is available
>> in laboratories?
>
> i think that would even be better than regular distilled water!



Makes no difference whatsoever. So long as mineral solids are absent, any
kind of water is fine. But not with Honda Genuine Premix.



--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

"SoCalMike" > wrote
> Elle wrote:
> > Ideally, do a flush (which is just a drain, fill, drain, etc. a few
times).
> > You can probably get away with just a full drain (including engine block
> > drain plug removed), but it doesn't take but a few minutes to go the
next
> > step and fill and drain a few more times. I just used hose water for
this.
>
> we forgot to add to make sure the heater lever is full "on" for the
> whole procedure. that gets ALL the bad stuff out/good stuff in.

Yes. I was going on the bold assumption sb4t was using his/her owner's
manual's instructions.

wrote:

> First, and most important, do not use any silicone/silicate
> formulation. If you have it in there now, you are ruining the water
> pump seals. Flush like crazy and fill with genuine Honda coolant.
> Expensive? You just won't believe what it costs to replace the pump.
> The photomicrographs of the damaged seals show erosion caused by the
> silicate. Silicate is simply sand.

Silicates are not sand, although they're made from sand. Supposedly
only a small fraction might turn into abrasive crystals when they
inevitably come out of suspension. The main problem with silicates
are that they're unstable and form a gel that can plug up small
radiator passages. The shelf life of a typical silicated coolant is
18 months.

Silicone is generally not a problem. It may be a problem if
silicate/silicone ends up in the combustion chamber and is burned
at high temperature into an abrasive. However - a coolant leak into
the combustion chamber is a more serious problem.

Elle wrote:

> Quick response from a 1991 Civic (171k miles) (original) owner:
>
> What I've seen generally is mixing different anti-freezes, even if they're
> the same color, is a bad idea. Definitely do not mix a conventional Prestone
> green with the OEM coolant, which may be the blue stuff at the dealer's.
> Definitely do not mix orange with green, etc. (Of course the color coding
> implies a particular, certain chemistry, hence the advice not to mix.)

The conventional yellow Prestone is no longer being sold. What they
primarily sell now is "Prestone All Makes", which is a organic-acid
only coolant. No phosphates, silicates, borates, etc. The ingredient
label looks suspiciously like Prestone Dex-Cool.

If I were going to do a full change and Prestone All Makes was the
only stuff I could get, I would have no problem using it. When my
'95 Integra GS-R blew a coolant hose, I filled it with Havoline
Dex-Cool and it worked fine for 18K miles. The plastic radiator
tank finally cracked, but I heard that wasn't unusual at 130K miles.

wrote:
> Subhabrata Bhattacharyya wrote:
>
>>My car has enough Antifreeze (green one) in the radiator but little above
>>the min. mark in the tank. I read Elle's post and thought to top it up and
>>contacted Honda dealer to get the Antifreeze. They said they no longer sale
>>the green one anymore. They sell the blue one. I asked whether I need to
>>flush out the old one to put in a blue one, the guy said "sure!" but after a
>>quasi long pause!! So, my question to this trusted group of mine is:
>>
>>1) Is it okay to use a generic green antifreeze from Pennzoil? (It's about
>>half the price!)
>>2) Is it okay to mix it with the old green antifreeze? Does it have any
>>break down period like the way engine oil does?
>>3) Can I use the double distilled, deionozed water that is available in
>>laboratories?
>>
>>Thanks
>>SB
>
>
> First, and most important, do not use any silicone/silicate
> formulation. If you have it in there now, you are ruining the water
> pump seals. Flush like crazy and fill with genuine Honda coolant.
> Expensive? You just won't believe what it costs to replace the pump.
> The photomicrographs of the damaged seals show erosion caused by the
> silicate. Silicate is simply sand.
>
> You might be okay with an OAT type coolant like Dex-Cool, but it has
> it's own set of problems like sludge formation if the radiator gets air
> in it. So, overfill the bottle like Texaco recommends. And check the
> level often. It will give you long life, but so does Honda's blue
> formulation.
>
> I have a minor in chemistry. The lab water is first distilled like the
> bottled variety, and is then stripped of the ions that remain. This is
> produced by a great big, stainless-steel expresso-looking machine,
> right? But, such pure water becomes a decent solvent, and tries to
> dissolve whatever it's in contact with, much more than regular water.
> "Nature abhors a vacuum." So, if it were me, I would actually add a
> cup or two of tap water depending on your local water hardness.
>
i wouldn't. on the one hand, the water is a dilutant for a big hairy
dose of some pre-mixed goop, the exact compositon of which is going to
be debatable. on the other, the ionized water is an electrolyte. any
environment where there are differing materials in the presence of an
electrolyte and the ability to conduct any galvanic currents, you get
corrosion. /any/ ion content can accelerate that process, not diminish it.

"SoCalMike" > wrote
T wrote
> > And make certain you pull the block drain. Do not neglect this step.
There
> > is a quart of fluid in the block that is not drained unless you remove
the
> > block drain.
> >
> >
> but if the block drain is siezed or too much of a PITA, dont sweat it.
> the "flush" will take care of it.

Just want to be honest and say the flush (really, drain and fill several
times) I did a few years ago and a few years before that was with the engine
block drain bolt intact. That bolt can be hard to remove, though this past
year, I got it off easily. Others have reported that they don't bother to
remove it and have been fine, as far as can be told. Which is why I haven't
lost sleep over not removing it in the past.

A dilution calculation is appropriate, though, as Tegger has mentioned,
since not removing the bolt will result in a certain amount of residual
water/coolant remaining in the block when one does the final fill.

There's a fair amount of variation in how much the engine blocks of
different Hondas hold, IIRC. To be totally scientific, measure what comes
out of the petcock at the bottom of the radiator, and use this with the
manual to figure out what's sitting in the block, undrained.

Just an amateur but amateurs' experiences do add to the anecdotal data base,
IMO.

In article et>,
y_p_w > wrote:
>
>
>Elle wrote:
>
>> Quick response from a 1991 Civic (171k miles) (original) owner:
>>
>> What I've seen generally is mixing different anti-freezes, even if they're
>> the same color, is a bad idea. Definitely do not mix a conventional Prestone
>> green with the OEM coolant, which may be the blue stuff at the dealer's.
>> Definitely do not mix orange with green, etc. (Of course the color coding
>> implies a particular, certain chemistry, hence the advice not to mix.)
>
>The conventional yellow Prestone is no longer being sold. What they
>primarily sell now is "Prestone All Makes", which is a organic-acid
>only coolant. No phosphates, silicates, borates, etc. The ingredient
>label looks suspiciously like Prestone Dex-Cool.
>
>If I were going to do a full change and Prestone All Makes was the
>only stuff I could get, I would have no problem using it. When my
>'95 Integra GS-R blew a coolant hose, I filled it with Havoline
>Dex-Cool and it worked fine for 18K miles. The plastic radiator
>tank finally cracked, but I heard that wasn't unusual at 130K miles.

Hmm. I happened upon this thread, got rather concerned, and now feel a
little better :-)

I recently allowed a Firestone center to do a radiator flush. They filled
it with some generic green-yellow coolant which is merely referred to on
the bill as "pre-mix".

At first I feared they had used an old Prestone-like silicate formula ...
but in view of the above perhaps it isn't. On Monday I'm going to call
them and see if I can ascertain exactly what they did put in my radiator.

Mike S. wrote:
> At first I feared they had used an old Prestone-like silicate formula ...
> but in view of the above perhaps it isn't. On Monday I'm going to call
> them and see if I can ascertain exactly what they did put in my radiator.

i definately would. chances are, theyre using the lowest-priced bulk
stuff they can get. id guess thatd be regular prestone, with all them
phosphates that are bad for hondas.

In article >,
SoCalMike > wrote:
>Mike S. wrote:
>> At first I feared they had used an old Prestone-like silicate formula ...
>> but in view of the above perhaps it isn't. On Monday I'm going to call
>> them and see if I can ascertain exactly what they did put in my radiator.
>
>i definately would. chances are, theyre using the lowest-priced bulk
>stuff they can get. id guess thatd be regular prestone, with all them
>phosphates that are bad for hondas.

I called Firestone. They tell me the green antifreeze they install is
DexCool. As I understand this is organic-acid based.