Recently, I took on the project of fixing a coolant leak on the Audi A6 2.7t at the thermostat housing. It has the infamous plastic housing that likes to warp and crack eventually, so I "found" a nice metal housing on a core engine and replaced the plastic one with it and also the thermostat and seal. Topped it off with some fresh G12 and set out for the test run and to dispose of the old coolant.
By the time I reached the municipal station, everything was up to temp and working just fine. The attendant at the station looked under my car and said that there was a pond of some sort forming. Great, I figured that the seal on the metal housing let loose or something and I'd have to tear it all apart again.
Well, the spring clamp on the lower radiator hose failed and the hose popped off of the housing pouring all of my coolant in their parking lot.
My arm was too fat to reach it to put it back on, so I filled up a couple of gallon jugs with water and headed back on the 3 mile journey to my home. Made it back to my garage with no problem, only having to stop once to fill with water to keep the temp in check.
One problem though, all the parts stores that I knew that carried G12 were closed on Sunday at this time. I headed off to Autozone and picked up Prestone AM/AM long life coolant, as it was the only one that stated it was silicate free in addition to being free of all of the other stuff that Euro coolant usually doesn't have.
Put in 1 liter of full strength to mix with the amount of water I thought was still in the system, and then added the 5 liters of 50/50 to get it up to the proper level. Also installed a new overflow tank as mine had seen better days. No problems so far and the heat works great. I actually prefer the neon green color of the Prestone to the pink of the old G12. Why they tinted any coolant pink is beyond me.
It's also nice to be able to pick up a gallon of concentrate for $14, as opposed to a 1.5 liter bottle of the G12 for $13.
By the time I reached the municipal station, everything was up to temp and working just fine. The attendant at the station looked under my car and said that there was a pond of some sort forming. Great, I figured that the seal on the metal housing let loose or something and I'd have to tear it all apart again.
Well, the spring clamp on the lower radiator hose failed and the hose popped off of the housing pouring all of my coolant in their parking lot.
One problem though, all the parts stores that I knew that carried G12 were closed on Sunday at this time. I headed off to Autozone and picked up Prestone AM/AM long life coolant, as it was the only one that stated it was silicate free in addition to being free of all of the other stuff that Euro coolant usually doesn't have.
Put in 1 liter of full strength to mix with the amount of water I thought was still in the system, and then added the 5 liters of 50/50 to get it up to the proper level. Also installed a new overflow tank as mine had seen better days. No problems so far and the heat works great. I actually prefer the neon green color of the Prestone to the pink of the old G12. Why they tinted any coolant pink is beyond me.
It's also nice to be able to pick up a gallon of concentrate for $14, as opposed to a 1.5 liter bottle of the G12 for $13.