Most antifreeze products will have a dilution guide on the packaging but if not you can use the chart to the right as a rough guide. There are dedicated products you can buy to aid system flushing, such as Holts Speed Flush 7. With advancements in chemical compound technology this is being pushed out to as much as five years with long life coolant, but it's always worth erring on the side of caution. Do I need to flush out my coolant system?Īlways go by the car manufacturer guidelines, but it used to be a general rule of thumb that the coolant should flushed out and replaced every two years or 32,000 kilometres (20,000 miles). If in a hard water area it's worth using distilled or deionised water. To ensure the coolant system is working to maximum efficiency it is advised to flush it out in this situation with a suitable cleaning agent, then refill with the recommended coolant and anti-freeze levels.
If the engine's temperature is being controlled satisfactorily then this probably means nothing more than scale build up or the use of hard water. Should I worry about sludge in the coolant? It's fine to top up the coolant with water when needs be, though larger top-ups and flush-outs should be done with the recommended amounts of coolant and anti-freeze. Isn't coolant just water?įor the most part yes, though each car maker has its own set of guidelines, which you should strictly adhere to in terms of coolant specification and anti-freeze concentration. A thermostat controls the flow through the engine and the latest engines vary the cooling depending on conditions to enhance efficiency. Air flowing through the radiator (from the car moving or a supplementary fan) removes heat from the coolant as it passes through, so it is ready to cool the engine again on the next pass. The cooling system is a closed loop where the coolant is pumped through various small channels in the engine block and cylinder head, removing heat from the metal, before passing through a radiator. A product labelled antifreeze will be a concentrated solution, designed to be diluted with water before you add it to your cooling system.
A product labelled coolant will be a pre-mixed, ready to use solution of Anti-freeze and water that you can pour straight into the cooling system. If you're buying antifreeze/coolant in a store or online, it's important to know the difference between the two. The vast majority of modern cars use liquid cooling to maintain optimum engine temperature. Simply put, coolant is the liquid that runs through an engine to keep it within its correct operating temperature range.
Anti-freeze also helps prevent scale build up and corrosion in the engine and improving heat transfer from the hot engine to the coolant. As the name suggests, antifreeze prevents your engine's coolant from freezing in sub-zero temperatures. What is antifreeze?Īntifreeze is a glycol-based concentrated liquid that you mix with water and use to fill up your car's cooling system. Coolant/antifreeze prevents your engine overheating and also prevents it from freezing when the temperatures outside drop below zero.
A properly functioning and well-maintained cooling system is vital to the health of your engine. Something that often gets overlooked is the car's cooling system. There are lots of items that should be looked at such as the tyres, oil, lights, windscreen wipers and even your battery. As the weather starts to turn at the end of Summer and temperatures drop it's a good time to give your car a once-over for the colder weather that's around the corner.
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