question about coolant?

[albertgunit101]

what is the most preferable brand of coolant should we use for our N/A? i dont know a lot about coolant to me they are all the same. but since our radiator is a little bit old school im afraid there might be some coolant out there that are harmful to our radiator and water pumps. any word of advice is greatly appreciated. thanks. my hose that are connected from the radiator cap is leaking. its not busted, yet but its leaking from the connection.

[Luni]

If your car is relatively stock, or its never been changed, youre using toyota red, Id continue to use it.

If your coolant comes out a reddish or brown color, thats the case.

If your coolant is greenish, then its been changed with normal green coolant (such as you would find at autozone or checker - like prestone or peak or whatever brand you like).

Dont mix green with red. Thats my only advice. Use either/or but dont mix the 2.

[Sang]

If you have Toyota Red coolant, change it and refill.

If you have green, powerflush the system and put in Toyota red.

[TomsMR2]

toyota red was designed to be compatable with aluminum heads and the metals found sort of exclusively in those motors at the time.. they necessitated a special coolant.

these days those materials are old news, and basically all coolants available today are compatible with whats in your car.

i run prestone green now. if for any reason i ever need to buy and refill coolant in a pinch, theres ALWAYS a place you can find prestone green. thats not the case with toyota coolant, and its 3 times more expensive and really no better. ive also pulled apart my motor and cooling system after at least 4 years (it was green when i got it) of running green and there was no corrosion or damage.

[Luni]

There is NO reason to swap out green for toyota red. Again, its just about the 2 not getting along. They sludge if you combine them.

Tom is right.

[albertgunit101]

so any coolant is good. you can mix it with those 50/50 mix coolant and stuff. coz when i got this car the last owner did poor job on fluids. the coolant is brownish. poor maintenance on coolants. and now i am going to replace all the radiator hoses coz its leaking the hoses were really old and scary for me it might just bust any time. so i have to drain it and fill it back again when im done.

[runabout93]

thanks Tom.. you saved me a alot of money I thought I had to spend after reading posts about the Toyota red coolant.

[Dance_Business]

What about those additives to lower the temp? Are they worth it? Do they really help?

[Luni]

Youre talking about like.. Redline water wetter?

You can get the same effect by putting a few drops of dish soap in there (all it does is breaks the surface tension).

[TomsMR2]

water wetter works.. but we have such enormous cooling systems that its hardly worth thinking twice about it.

[mr2greasemonkey]

TomsMR2 makes some pretty good points. Unless you are racing(seriously) you shouldnt need any top line special coolant in your engine. Regular green that you can find anywhere is perfectly good in a clean sealed system.