Differences in coolant brands?

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I plan on replacing the original factory coolant in my '00 Sentra SE. It has 41K miles. The manual calls for Nissan Coolant or equivalent ethelyne glycol coolant (basic green stuff). My question is: Is there any meaningful difference in quality & additives amongst modern coolants? Do they all contain corrosion inhibitors? I looked at Wal Mart's Super Tech coolant and it meests ASTM standard D3306. Yet nowhere on the jug does it mention corrosion protection. Can this be assumed? It's part numbers match Prestone's & Zerex's. Yet it's a full $3.50 cheaper per gallon than the name brands.

Do any of you have experience in using the off-brand coolants? NAPA has a store brand but it cost $12.00 per gallon. I can't imagine it being that much different than Prestone. Thanks!
 
I have looked at everything I could find on this form and others about Nissan coolant. It appears beyond reasonable argument that it is not the same as "the green stuff." The only way to get real Nissan antifreeze is at the dealer and mine wants $16/gallon. I have reluctantly concluded I have to pay the price to preserve my waranty. (02 Maxima)
From what I have read, the Japanese, Europeans, and North America all use different additives. Most are non-compatible but if you completely flush the system you can use different additive containing coolants. The trick is which ones and this I haven't discovered.
 
This has been pretty well flogged here before. Search the forum if you haven't already.

Short version, from memory...

There are several aftermarket substitutes for American and European cars, but substitutes are had to find to non-existant for Japanese cars.

Some people have has success completely changing over to the regular green stuff on Japanese cars.

I was going to switch my wifes Acura over to generic, but then I drained the factory 4 year old coolant and it looked like new. I went to the dealer and bought more at an outrageous price.
 
When I searched I was able to find differences among different types of coolants but not necessarily brands. I looked at jugs of Peak & Prestone and they both mentioned that they contain, aside from ethelyne glycol, silicates & corrosion inhibitors. The Wally World stuff only mentions ethelyne glycol, diethelyne glycol & water.

Would it be safe to assume that the Wally World stuff is silicate-free? Could it be just straight antifreeze/coolant and nothing else? Anyone have the skinny on who makes Super Tech coolant? The jug says it's packaged by Alsip Packaging of IL.
 
quote:

Originally posted by McGarrett:
Would it be safe to assume that the Wally World stuff is silicate-free? Could it be just straight antifreeze/coolant and nothing else? Anyone have the skinny on who makes Super Tech coolant? The jug says it's packaged by Alsip Packaging of IL.

Who makes Wally World products??? The low bidder
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Now that I have made my obligatory smart assed remark, this might help. Look at various poackinging codes on the AF that might tie to this MSDS sheet. Keep in mind that Wally World suppliers change.

http://msds.walmartstores.com/msds/tif/00/02/48/00024888.tif

Wally Worlds MSDS site is at:
http://msds.walmartstores.com/cgi-bin/msds.exe
 
Wow! That's quite a list of products. I found the MSDS for their coolant/antifreeze. It's made by Prestone but there's no mention any extra additives besides the glycols & water. I almost have to think that it's the same stuff as the green Prestone that comes in the yellow bottle but I'll never know for sure. Thanks for the link!
 
quote:

Originally posted by McGarrett:
Wow! That's quite a list of products. I found the MSDS for their coolant/antifreeze. It's made by Prestone but there's no mention any extra additives

Take it all with a big grain of salt. Big companies change sources for their products and MSDS sheets don't tell all.

If you can find some manufacturing code on the container that links to the MSDS sheet, you can be a surer about it.

FWIW, that MSDS sheet does say that the only non-hazardous ingredient greater than 1% is water. I believe silicates need to be higher than that to be effective. Someone here probably actually knows.
 
i own a honda and the dealer wants $10 for a gallon of coolant. i haven't been able to source a silicate free coolant that is as good or equal to the house brand, so i guess i'll stick with it for now.

using silicate coolant in a honda will wear out the seals on the water pump and clog the radiator after a while.

i'd rather not even think about the gm dex-cool crap since it has problems with getting chunky if air is present in the system.
 
Peak claims that their Global Extended Life coolant (gold bottle) can be used in any vehicle.

Aware that the main issue with Hondas is the presence of silicates, I confirmed with Peak tech support that this stuff has no silicates in it.

I have been using it for topoff in my 2000 Civic, and I'm not nervous about it. When I do a flush next, I'm probably going to use this stuff.

It can be found around here for $9.50/gallon full-strength, which compares very favorably with the local dealer's price of $16/gallon for pre-diluted Honda coolant.

It's out of warranty, and Honda has pissed me off with their attempt to bully me into buying their stuff.
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Just on principle, I'm willing to try something else.
 
Let me ask this: Is it possible for coolant/antifreeze not to have corrosion protection? I can understand not having silicates/phosphates/whatever. But can corrosion protection be left out? If so, why?
 
I wouldn't think anybody would be selling an antifreeze/coolant with no corrosion protection at all. I'm not by any means an expert, but here's the way I understand things at the moment:

Plain ol' pure water is the Ideal Coolant from a heat transfer perspective. Trouble with that is that freezing and boiling points are too high and too low, respectively.

Ethylene glycol mixed with water takes care of the freezing/boiling problems quite nicely. E.G. doesn't transfer heat as well as water, but a 50/50 mix works just fine in that regard, particularly since road car cooling systems are normally built to be pretty robust.

With the exception of the "safe" coolants like Sierra (which use less-toxic propylene glycol), all coolants that I'm aware of (standard green, DexCool, Nissan, Toyota Red, Honda Green, G-05, etc.) use ethylene glycol. It seems to be a common misconception that "non-green" coolants don't use E.G.: they do.

Corrosion inhibition is the next major issue that must be addressed. E.G. does nothing to stop or slow down the corrosion that is almost certain to occur when water is left in contact with aluminum and/or steel/iron for two years.

Silicates and phosphates are pretty effective corrosion inhibitors: It's my understanding that this is the only reason they're added to coolants to begin with. Some makers, though, have determined that side effects of these things would be nice to avoid. (For example, the Japanese makers seem unanimous in their feeling that silicates prove unduly hard on water pump seals.)

OK, great. But they can't simply remove silicates & phosphates from their formulations without replacing them with some other corrosion inhibitor.

DexCool, I believe (going from memory) uses something called Organic Acid Technology (OAT) as its corrosion inhibitor. As we've read about, there are some issues with that specific formulation.

Some other coolants now are using what they call Hybrid OAT (HOAT), which is...better. Somehow. I guess. I really know very little about this. Peak Global Extended Life has some "proprietary corrosion inhibitor" - who knows what it is.

The whole game appears to be finding a suitable replacement for silicates and phosphates as corrosion inhibitors. An added benefit seems to be longer life: silicates get "used up", while these HOAT-type chemistries do not - at least, not in quite the same manner.

I wrote this out mostly hoping that whatever misconceptions I may be laboring under might be corrected.
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But, I think the short answer to the question of corrosion inhibitors is, "Yes, you could formulate a coolant without them. But for street use, I don't think you'd want to."
 
There is another option. Fleetguard makes a coolant that they claim is 100% compatible with everything out there, will work with all vehicles, and you can get it as EG or PG.

The nice thing is, they also sell a separate coolant additive that you put in every 1 year or 150,000 miles which replenishes whatever additives are "consumed". Following this schedule, you can keep the same coolant until the 1st engine rebuild (at which point it's only prudent to replace the coolant).

I like this method a lot better than the "leave it in there for 5 years and don't touch it" approach taken by most OEM's.
 
This may be overkill. Here is an article about antifreeeze chemistry and additives.
Conventional, OAT, HOAT
It is by WEBA which makes chemicals and may be an advertisement.

http://www.webacorp.com/technicalresources-artic3.html

It seems to answer some questions such as.
1. Why air in a dexcool system is bad and OK to have air in the overflow tank. The OAT Organic Acid Technology has to coat the metal to work.
2. Why Cummins does not recommend OAT. It attacks certain gasket materials.
3. Why OAT is not compatible with old type antifreeze. Carboxylates in OAT react with inorganic salts in conventional antifreeze. HOAT (Hybrid Organic Acid Technology) uses carboxlyates that are compatible.

[ April 21, 2004, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: thrace ]
 
I drained the radiater in my wifes 2001 Accord and installed PEAK Global extended life 50/50
last fall with no ill effects. I also find Hondas insistance on using only Honda brand annoying. What about Magnason/Moss.
 
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