Tap or de-ionised/distilled water?

Inactive

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

You are taking the *iss aren't you??

:rotfl::D:D

Fair cop.;)

Stephen_Leak

OK. All of this has become even more academic.

For a start, my car currently has just tap water in it, as I planned to run it with this for a day or so to flush the system's little nooks & crannies. However, it is leaking this water from the bottom hose I used to drain the sysem to the tune of about a litre a day. I've tightened the jubilee clip, whilst the water is still hot and the hose is still soft, unfortunately to the extent where I've broken a corner off of the screwdriver bit! God knows what I've done to the slot on the clip.

It gets better. The "Anti-Freeze & Summer Coolant" I've bought from ASDA is, on closer examination of the rear label, "ready for use" and the instructions for use make no mention whatsoever of diluting it. So, it's presumably pre-diluted. But, what dilution is it? My system requires 50%. If it's, say, 60%, I can add more water to bring it down to 50%. If it's, say, only 40%, what do I bring it up to 50% with.

It - rather worryingly for medical reasons - doesn't even have any ingredients listed. It does say it's methanol-free, so it's probably ethylene glycol. (It does have an advert for their car insurance will might not come as a great consolation to someone, whose pet or child has drunk the stuff because it smells and tastes sweet.)

I've e-mailed their Customer Service and will take the stuff back tomorrow morning - as if I didn't have enough to do.

OK. Rant over. I feel so much better now. Nurse!

cyclonebri1

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

OK. All of this has become even more academic.

For a start, my car currently has just tap water in it, as I planned to run it with this for a day or so to flush the system's little nooks & crannies. However, it is leaking this water from the bottom hose I used to drain the sysem to the tune of about a litre a day. I've tightened the jubilee clip, whilst the water is still hot and the hose is still soft, unfortunately to the extent where I've broken a corner off of the screwdriver bit! God knows what I've done to the slot on the clip.

It gets better. The "Anti-Freeze & Summer Coolant" I've bought from ASDA is, on closer examination of the rear label, "ready for use" and the instructions for use make no mention whatsoever of diluting it. So, it's presumably pre-diluted. But, what dilution is it? My system requires 50%. If it's, say, 60%, I can add more water to bring it down to 50%. If it's, say, only 40%, what do I bring it up to 50% with.

It - rather worryingly for medical reasons - doesn't even have any ingredients listed. It does say it's methanol-free, so it's probably ethylene glycol. (It does have an advert for their car insurance will might not come as a great consolation to someone, whose pet or child has drunk the stuff because it smells and tastes sweet.)

I've e-mailed their Customer Service and will take the stuff back tomorrow morning - as if I didn't have enough to do.

OK. Rant over. I feel so much better now. Nurse!

Is your name really Stephen Leak?? And what are you doing drinking anti freeze??, ;)

focae

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

OK. All of this has become even more academic.

For a start, my car currently has just tap water in it, as I planned to run it with this for a day or so to flush the system's little nooks & crannies. However, it is leaking this water from the bottom hose I used to drain the sysem to the tune of about a litre a day. I've tightened the jubilee clip, whilst the water is still hot and the hose is still soft, unfortunately to the extent where I've broken a corner off of the screwdriver bit! God knows what I've done to the slot on the clip.

It gets better. The "Anti-Freeze & Summer Coolant" I've bought from ASDA is, on closer examination of the rear label, "ready for use" and the instructions for use make no mention whatsoever of diluting it. So, it's presumably pre-diluted. But, what dilution is it? My system requires 50%. If it's, say, 60%, I can add more water to bring it down to 50%. If it's, say, only 40%, what do I bring it up to 50% with.

It - rather worryingly for medical reasons - doesn't even have any ingredients listed. It does say it's methanol-free, so it's probably ethylene glycol. (It does have an advert for their car insurance will might not come as a great consolation to someone, whose pet or child has drunk the stuff because it smells and tastes sweet.)

I've e-mailed their Customer Service and will take the stuff back tomorrow morning - as if I didn't have enough to do.

OK. Rant over. I feel so much better now. Nurse!

You can measure the Specific Gravity of the coolant with a hydrometer which should come with instructions.

Also sounds like your bottom hose needs renewing, it has probably perished or become swollen with age which is why you can't get it to seal. Probably need to clean the deposits fron the radiator coupling at this point as well.

Ready mix antifreeze is almost certainly 50/50 mix.

Inactive

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Is your name really Stephen Leak?? And what are you doing drinking anti freeze??, ;)

:rotfl::rotfl::D

dal99boy

hello i used to work for scania trucks and in the factory they filled one battery with tap water and one with destilled water, after charging and discharging both batterys for a few weeks the one filled with destilled water held 0.5 volts for 2 minites longer then the other one. just one of the mad test we had to do.

Coveredinbees!!!!

You could boil the water, condense the steam off and use that if you really bored.

somech

is this really a thread about what water to go in a car

tap water 50/50 with good quality antifreez job done

Avoriaz

thescouselander wrote: »

Money saving tip - if you do ever need de-ionised water you can get this for free if you have (or know someone that has) a condensing dryer - the water that is collected in the tank is actually de-ionised.

I'm being a bit pedantic but technically it isn't, it is distilled water.

Distilled water is water that has been evaporated and condensed producing virtually pure water.

De-ionised water is water that has had charged mineral salts removed, usually by ion exchange. Uncharged impurities such as bacteria and organic compounds are not removed by this process so therefore de-ionised water is less pure than distilled water.

For most purposes, such as batterys, steam irons etc, de-ionised water is just as good as distilled water and is more often used as it is cheaper to produce.

But for some mainly medical, scientific and laboratory purposes, double distilled water is used in order to get to as pure water as possible.

Having said all that, condensing dryer water is effectively free and fine for use in irons and batterys.

Tap water is fine for car cooling systems as there is no benefit using distilled or de-ionised water.

Imp

Not forgetting, of course, that distilled and de-ionised water is basically "empty" and wants to fill itself up with ions, so if you run your car with just de-ionised or distilled water the water will attack the metal componants in your car and disolve them. Adding the antifeeze should go most of the way to stopping this though.