Hey, so I have a c5 z06 and I brought pure coolant and distilled water to a mechanic and asked him to flush/change the coolant but when I came home I noticed that he only used the pure coolant. When I asked him about it he said 'yeah, water causes problems'.
Should I have it redone? Is running pure coolant perfectly fine?

I do live in North California btw.

 

From the look of it, he just unscrewed the coolant bleeder screw to drain it, then added 1.5gallons of pure coolant.

 

Yep, that's what I was thinking ;/
Safe to drive for a few weeks though, right?

 

Are you sure it wasn't a 50/50 mix ??? Some anti-freeze comes that way !!

 

As the concentration of antifreeze in water goes from 0% to 50%, the boiling point rises and the freeze point lowers. if you continue from 50% to 100%, the boiling point goes back down and the freeze point goes back up. The optimum concentration is 50/50!

 

Straight Antifreeze is NOT good for your engine..
It is designed to be diluted .. In a warm climate, I'd go 40% Dexcool and 60% distilled water. Straight coolant can be corrosive as well.
Find Out Exactly what your mechanic actually did..

 

From a Nascar racing background the best coolant is 100% distilled water---It offers the best cooling properties----But those engines are re buit every race so corrosion is not an issue
On the street you want some corrosion protection--in colder freezing climates you would want to run at least a 50/50 mix for corrosion and freeze protection
Here in Calif where I live---I run 100% water in the summer months adding only some Red-Line corrosion protection----In the winter colder months I will drain out 1 gallon and add 1 gallon of 50/50 mix for freeze protection JMHO

 

there is a lot of talk about not using destilled water, because its "corrosive". any insights on that? a few years ago i was talking to a water engineer and he agreed with that.

 

Its hard to comment on your post...sort of flies in the face of reality.

 

My limited understanding of this is when there is no coolant present this can be an issue, but not a 50/50 mix.

 

My label here says basically the same thing except they do specifically mention not to use it at 100% concentration. No data on how it would perform, but "don't do it" is good enough for me.

 

70% coolant freezes at 84ºF? That can't be right.

 

The freeze point continues to go DOWN until you are above ~70% AF/coolant. Above that, THEN the freeze point increases.

 

Nice chart!

 

Pure antifreeze does not conduct heat as well as a dilution with water.

 

If the mechanic thoroughly flushed the engine and heater multiple times until the drained coolant ran clear and was obviously water and then added the coolant you aren't at a 100% antifreeze mixture. With my C5s I would flush the system multiple times until I had clear liquid coming out of the radiator and then would add the exact amount of straight DexCool needed to bring the mixture to 50/50 when cool and then top off with water. There is no need to use distilled water. GM recommends clean drinkable water and that is what I have been using with my GM cars since I first took delivery of a 97 C5. My 2003 Tahoe is coming up on 14 years and it is on its third fill of Dex with water straight from the faucet. There have been no cooling system issues. My two C5s went into their second fill as well as my C6 and my 2008 Malibu is on it's second fill now. My wife's 99 Saturn was on its fourth fill when my nephew sold it this last Summer he had been driving the ca since 2008.

Bill

 

Some peoples tap water might be OK, but it depends what kinds of minerals are desolved in the tap water, which varies. Using distilled water is the safer thing to do......

 

I think the only thing that confuses more people than oil viscosity is coolant.

things...

1. WATER is the primary means by which heat is absorbed and transported NOT antifreeze. Using a mixture of 100% antifreeze is less effective than a mixture of water and antifreeze for that reason. The purpose of antifreeze is to lower freezing points, raise boiling points, and provide corrosion protection. NOT to help the coolant move heat around.

2. Track cars don't use antifreeze for several reasons.
2.1 Water is better (see point #1)
2.2 Antifreeze creates "slicks" when it's spilled onto asphalt
2.3 Track cars don't typically see extremes of cold
2.4 Track cars typically have their engines rebuilt/replaced before corrosion becomes an issue

3. Using distilled water is silly. Total dissolved solids in tap water is usually around 500 mg per liter. Now if you do the math, that comes out to around .2 ounces in 3 gallons of water. Regardless of how much flushing you do, you're never going to get a car's cooling system so perfectly clean that those .2 ounces of dissolved solids are going to matter one G.D. bit. Or to put that another way, the instant you pour distilled water over a not-perfectly-clean-and-corrosion-free metallic surface, it is no longer distilled water.

 

Ultra pure distilled water as used in semiconductor manufacturing is corrosive. The distilled water that you buy in plastic jugs is nowhere near as pure and is not corrosive.

 

Hmm, didn't know that.