why is price not proportional to 50/50 coolant mixes

[Brandon Gatz]

50/50 mixes appear to be all the rage now, it's 90% of what i see at pep boys. what i cannot figure out is why the price does not accurately reflect the true value of the product. for example:

Peak Antifreeze Full Strength = $8.99/gl
Peak Antifreeze 50/50 = $7.99/gl

so it seems that if i go for 50/50, i'm paying 92% of the cost of full strength, for only half of the product. perhaps they are using holy water imported from subsaharan burkina faso, and paying pre-aparteide prices for the use of this water?

maybe i'm missing something, but this price structure makes no sense to me.

 

[ScottB]

Blame it on bottled water!
Remember, Evian backwards is Naive!
Paying for convenience there...
Buy full-strength and mix at home.

Scott

 

[Ray H]

Blame it on an obscene profit margin by the antifreeze bottlers. (What's that distant howl? Oh, yeah, uncontrollable laughter at an antifreeze bottling plant...) A gallon of distilled water can be had at WalMart for around sixty cents - and WalMart's still making expenses and showing a profit on it at that price. I keep at least one empty antifreeze jug on hand so I can mix my own at changeout time. One $6.88 jug of SuperTech's dexcool clone and a jug of WalMart distilled water yields TWO gallons of homemade 50/50 premix for $3.74 each before sales tax is added in. (Oh, yeah - I'm also out the inconvenience of several minutes of my life irretrievably lost in pouring half the new jug into the empty one and diluting both with the distilled water...

)

 

[mcrn]

plus because people are generally lazy and do not want to try and do a 50/50 mix themselves and then the companies can charge what they want and people buy it.

 

[Vilan]

Basically the 50/50 costs almost the same because it's ready to use straight out of the bottle. Same reason that $2 of pasta costs $12.99 in a restaurant. You don't want to cook it, you pay more.

What's really amusing is seeing distilled water for sale *right next to the concentrated antifreeze* and still they have those inflated prices for the 50/50. I just stood there for a minute, looking back and forth between the bottles, then walked away giggling.

I did actually see one store with sane pricing. Something like $6.59 for the concentrate and $3.59 for the 50/50. So there is hope.

 

[robbobster]

Even more amusing are folks who won't use distilled water.

A while back I had a ceonversation with the parts guy at a parts store (can't recall which one) and he said that the minerals in tap water were required for coolling-system lubrication.

Yikes.

 

[UncleS2]

i.e., Why do they charge so much for pre-mixed anti-freeze? Because they can!

(And why can they? Because most people are really lazy, & have the approximate math skills of a fencepost.

)

My car has a less-than-2-gal cooling system. We drink a lot of store-bought water in plastic jusgs, & so always have clean plastic jugs & caps available. My procedure? Take 2 clean empty jugs, set 'em "side-by-each", fill to equal levels with antifreeze, using the full gallon. Then top up to equal full levels with a gallon of distilled water. Cap & shake, & *Presto* ! 2 gallons of perfectly mixed 50% antifreeze solution. It works for me.

 

[Ray H]

Right, freakin' on!

 

[CoyoteMan]

This site needs an automotive myths section where we set down all those funky, silly and outrageous myths about cars/trucks/parts/lubes,etc.