Why do shops use tap water?!

[Carnoobie]

Someone tell me why shops all use tap water for their coolant flushes? Youre not suppose to as tap water has minerals and will eat plastic parts inside the engine and your hoses! And they will build up corrosion and leave sendiments behind all over your engine and rad.

I dont get it, Ive talked to many mechs at shops and they all seem to think distilled water is no benefit and tap water wont do any harm. Are you sure? Cause what shops do is they run their hose down the rad! BAD!

 

[GumbyJarvis]

I use Spring Water?
Last time I did my Coolant to Zerex G05 from Motorcraft, I used Racetrac Gallon Spring Water, Sourced from Deep Well Ocala?
No Issues here.
What came out was Motorcraft and Zephyrhills Spring Water (Put in my Ford Dealer Here)

 

[bdcardinal]

It's cheaper and easier to use tap water. Plus I remember hearing from Prestone that tap water is ok to use.

FWIW Ford wants the dealers to use distilled water, we use the de-ionized water from our spot free carwash.

 

[ctrcbob]

For coolant "flush", tap water should be fine, because you drain it out after the flush. Once the system is clean, then you should use distilled water (or de-mineralized water and Antifreeze/coolant.

BTW, Zephyerhills or any other spring water is loaded with minerals, and should not be used. You may as well use tap water if you are going to use any bottled drinking water.

 

[carwreck]

Originally Posted By: Carnoobie
Someone tell me why shops all use tap water for their coolant flushes? Youre not suppose to as tap water ... will eat plastic parts inside the engine and your hoses!

How long does it take for the tap water to eat the plastic parts ? Does the water chew with it's mouth open or closed ?
Why does it only eat car plastic and not plastic bottles or plastic house plumbing ?

 

[GumbyJarvis]

Originally Posted By: carwreck
Originally Posted By: Carnoobie
Someone tell me why shops all use tap water for their coolant flushes? Youre not suppose to as tap water ... will eat plastic parts inside the engine and your hoses!

How long does it take for the tap water to eat the plastic parts ? Does the water chew with it's mouth open or closed ?
Why does it only eat car plastic and not plastic bottles or plastic house plumbing ?



+1
Ive gone 110K in my truck using Spring Water since FF, no issues...

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: Carnoobie
Someone tell me why shops all use tap water for their coolant flushes? Youre not suppose to as tap water has minerals and will eat plastic parts inside the engine and your hoses! And they will build up corrosion and leave sendiments behind all over your engine and rad.

I dont get it, Ive talked to many mechs at shops and they all seem to think distilled water is no benefit and tap water wont do any harm. Are you sure? Cause what shops do is they run their hose down the rad! BAD!




just flush the tapwater with Genuine Trollpoop. It works amazing. No problems.

 

[djb]

It's common for shops to use untreated tap water for cooling system flushes and fills. It's rare for a shop to have a DI (De-ionization) system or to use distilled water.

Coolants have additives that minimize the deposits from typical tap water. Some water supplies are low enough in minerals to be acceptable, but there are many that contain enough dissolved solids to overwhelm the additives.

Bottled spring water or "drinking" water is absolutely the wrong thing to use. Spring water is not the same as distilled water. It tastes better because it has the "right" type of dissolved minerals. Look at the ingredients of fake spring water such as Dasani. It's purified tap water with a secret formula of minerals added back in. "Purified drinking water" is filtered, UV sterilized (both pointless for this use) and perhaps reverse-osmosis filtered (somewhat useful).

 

[Carnoobie]

Originally Posted By: carwreck
Originally Posted By: Carnoobie
Someone tell me why shops all use tap water for their coolant flushes? Youre not suppose to as tap water ... will eat plastic parts inside the engine and your hoses!

How long does it take for the tap water to eat the plastic parts ? Does the water chew with it's mouth open or closed ?
Why does it only eat car plastic and not plastic bottles or plastic house plumbing ?


the [censored] that comes out of the garden hose is tap water, plus whatever was in the hose... WHAT REMAINS IN THE ENGINE IS WHY IT WILL CAUSE ISSUES!!!
just those little drops of tap water can be enough to cause problems

Tap water creates a nasty film in your rad and over time will block coolant flow and your combustion chamber.

 

[RiceCake]

Troll is back with another story of the apocalypse.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: Carnoobie
Someone tell me why shops all use tap water for their coolant flushes? Youre not suppose to as tap water has minerals and will eat plastic parts inside the engine and your hoses! And they will build up corrosion and leave sendiments behind all over your engine and rad.

I dont get it, Ive talked to many mechs at shops and they all seem to think distilled water is no benefit and tap water wont do any harm. Are you sure? Cause what shops do is they run their hose down the rad! BAD!




just flush the tapwater with Genuine Trollpoop. It works amazing. No problems.

 

[Carnoobie]

if you have nothing nice to say then dont speak at all.

 

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: Carnoobie

. . . just those little drops of tap water can be enough to cause problems

Tap water creates a nasty film in your rad and over time will block coolant flow and your combustion chamber.


Next time just use heavy water. Its greater atomic density (+11%) will more than compensate for coolant efficiency losses caused by tap water. Available at any roadside nuclear weapons facility.

Problem solved.

 

[Trajan]

Used tap water for decades. Never a problem.

 

[bdcardinal]

Here is another thing to think of, a lot of owners of the buildings have in their leases that anything bolted or screwed into the wall or floor is the property of the land/building owner. So if a shop drops coin on a de-ionizer or distilled tank that is bolted into the wall or floor, it no longer belongs to them. Most shops rent or lease the building around here at least, property is too expensive to buy.

A friend of mine works in a very high end local German car independent. They bought a new Hunter alignment rack with a setup to let them do corner weighting for track cars, total investment was around $50K. They new when that was installed it was now property of the building owner and no longer theirs.

 

[stephen9666]

Here's what Peak says:
Quote:
Although regular water will do, the refilling of the system should be done with distilled water. Distilled water doesn't contain any minerals which can dissolve and cause scale and deposits in your cooling system.


Unless you live in an area with very, very hard water, I doubt it will make much of a difference. The shop I used to work in used tap water for coolant. I think many shops are the same way. If it really was a problem, I think there would be many more cars with cooling system issues.

So the OP, who has made it clear he doesn't know much about cars and is here to constantly ask questions, is now an expert on cooling systems? I find that suspect.

How do minerals "eat" plastics?

 

[johnachak]

Quote:
How long does it take for the tap water to eat the plastic parts ? Does the water chew with it's mouth open or closed ?
Why does it only eat car plastic and not plastic bottles or plastic house plumbing ?

Mixed with the chemicals in some antifreezes, the minerals will cause plaque and will corrode some plastics.

 

[cmorr]

If you have a problem with the way a shop performs a specific service you should find another shop or just DIY

 

[vssjim]

GM just states to use drinkable water when mixing coolants. So I take it as long as it doesn't smell real bad because of minerals it is fine to use tap water.

 

[Spazdog]

Top-rated drinking water
1. Arlington, TX
2. Providence, R.I.
3. Fort Worth, TX
4. Charleston, S.C.
5. Boston, MA
Lowest-rated drinking water
95. Houston (flush twice...Houston needs the water)
96. Reno, NV.
97. Riverside County, CA.
98. Las Vegas, NV
99. Riverside, CA
100. Pensacola, FL.

And I still won't use tap water.

I suspect that shops use tap water not only because it is plentiful and requires no storage space or inventory maintenance, but also it may guarantee further work in the future.