When To Drain Out The Coolant Mixture?

benson1980

Take the car for a long drive and fully heat it up- once its fully up to temp you will probably see the leak, if it is external. Look around the radiator and the coolant hoses. If its not externally leaking the only other place it can go is in the oil if, as above, the head gasket is leaking. This again should be reasonably obvious if you have mayo on the underside of your oil filler cap.

I would imagine if its 2011 you are probably running original coolant that it came out of the factory with, unless its had any work done which has involved draining it out. It doesn't necessarily need changing every few years. Depends on spec of coolant. Honda interval is 10 years, and then 5 years thereafter.

mrmot

The coolant should be G12 ++ or G13, which you should be able to get from any VW, Audi, Seat or Skoda dealer, even Halfords may do a compatible one.

Don't go by colour alone and don't mix any other type of coolant with this. G12/13 needs to be changed every 5 years, not because it becomes ineffective as antifreeze, but because the corrosion inhibitors within it get used up.

Retrogamer

mrmot wrote: »

The coolant should be G12 ++ or G13, which you should be able to get from any VW, Audi, Seat or Skoda dealer, even Halfords may do a compatible one.

Don't go by colour alone and don't mix any other type of coolant with this. G12/13 needs to be changed every 5 years, not because it becomes ineffective as antifreeze, but because the corrosion inhibitors within it get used up.

As above, i'm sure all VAG mobiles use the G12++ or G13 stuff.
It's usually pink when diluted and i done a 50/50 mixture in mines.

Mines is a 2006 Ibiza and SEAT say it lasts the life of the car, but as above i'd replace it every 5 years to prevent corrosion occurring .

Daz2009

Low coolant level is not necessarily caused by a leak or head gasket failure.It could be a dodgy radiator cap amongst other things.
It's not unheard of for the level to drop slightly over a period of time,doesn't mean there's a problem

colino

So a faulty radiator cap, which doesn't allow the system to pressurise properly and will vent coolant isn't a problem?
Just for absolute clarity, you check your cars fluids and pressures weekly at least, not because you expect to have to top them up, but when you do find a drop, you do know there is a problem.
I do wonder if some of the rubbish posted on here comes from people flicking through their granddads 1955 AA Book of the Road.

geek84

Hi Folks

Thanks for your replies.

Daz2009

colino wrote: »

So a faulty radiator cap, which doesn't allow the system to pressurise properly and will vent coolant isn't a problem?
Just for absolute clarity, you check your cars fluids and pressures weekly at least, not because you expect to have to top them up, but when you do find a drop, you do know there is a problem.
I do wonder if some of the rubbish posted on here comes from people flicking through their granddads 1955 AA Book of the Road.

A faulty radiator cap is definitely a problem.I was suggesting the loss of coolant is not necessarily down to a leak as most people suggest.

I wasn't looking thru granddads AA book of the road,it was exactly this fault that was causing a quite excessive loss of coolant on a Mini I had in recently.Other garages had suggested hose leaks,radiator leak,head gasket.It was none of these,it was the cap


The 2nd sentence in my earlier post was not intended to be related to the first,perhaps that caused the confusion.