I am getting ready to flush my radiator and change the fluid but before I do that I wanted to see what info I could find on the boards. The orginal radiator fluid in my car is green. My mechanic told me to get some radiaotr flush detergent to flush the radiator with and wanted to switch it over to the new orange coolant(I think made by Prestone). He wants me to make sure that I have pretty strong coolant in the car since I run her hard ever now and then. Now some people have said to stick with just the factory Honda radiator fluid. I have a bottle of redline waterwetter sitting in my house but I wanted to know what you guys think. Should I switch to the orange stuff, factory honda radiator fluid(which I never knew they had), or just the regular stuff??

 

The orange stuff is MAYBE DexCool. I'd say don't use that, it's been known to attack certain types of plastic that are used in cooling systems. It's OK if you change it every 2 years, but then you aren't taking advantage of it's advertized long life.

Check this out from a Saab board.
http://www.saabnet.com/tsn/bb/genera...html?bID=83227
More than you ever wanted to know...

 

get the honda stuff or something that is already premixed.

 

Stay with Honda or Prestone GREEN stuff and use a 50/50 mix.

 

I was looking at getting this


but you say I should get this one instead?

 

save your money and forget the Honda stuff. Get some premixed coolant, 50/50 so you don't have to worry about mixing it with water. You'll need to get like 2 bottles of it of which you might use like 1 1/4 - 1 1/2. Drain the old fluid, fill it up with Prestone radiator flush/cleaner and rest of it with water. Let the car run for like 10 mins or so while blasting the heat. Let it cool off and drain the fluid. Refill again with just water and let the car run for like 10 mins with the heat blasting. Let the car cool, drain the water and refill with the 50/50 mix.

Depending on how old your car is and how many miles are on it, it might be a good time to replace the thermostat and the thermostat gasket as well.

 

The prestone stuff is a 50/50 mix

 

Neither one of those bottles (your pictures) are pre-mixed. You have to mix 50/50 with water, but how difficult is that? I use distilled water because my well water is kinda hard.

I'd use either one, as long as you don't go the whole 5 years like the silver bottle says. The silver bottle is DexCool, it can attack nylon 6-6 if you leave it in too long.

The only thing I'd worry about is rinsing the old stuff out real good. Certain combinations are really incompatible. I take out the thermostat, fill with water, run it for half a minute, & drain. Fill & drain a few more times until there's no more color when you drain. Then put in the thermostat & fill with new antifreeze.

 

oh ok. Thats odd cause prestone said that the mix is 50/50 oh well I porbably just stick with the green and but still flush the hell out of my system. Thanks for the info.

 

Read the bottle. I bet it says that you're SUPPOSED to mix it 50/50 with water. I'm just going by the pictures you posted above, that's the same stuff you can buy in any Kmart... Prestone does sell some stuff that's already mixed, but it says so on the bottle.

When you drain your radiator it never ALL comes out. So after rinsing & draining you've still got a quart(?) of plain water in there. Find out how much total capacity in the cooling system, 7.3 quarts in my '98 4-cyl. Just add half of that (almost a gallon) from the antifreeze bottle. Then add water until it's full. Simple.