Maybe i missed it on the label but how much water do you mix with per gallon of prestone concentrate?

 

Usually a 1:1 ratio for the lowest temperature protection.

 

i was thinking the same with the 1 gallon of concentrate and 1 gallon of water mix.

I need roughly about 4 gallons total and will go this route to save about 35 bucks.

 

One gallon of concentrate and one gallon of water is the mix that you need. While the water part is usually fresh water from a faucet, I use distilled water from the local grocery store. A gallon jug costs me about $1.00-$1.10. If the tap water in your area has minerals or other contaminants, it's best to use the distilled stuff. Be sure to keep any extra mix handy if you need some.

 

 

USE DISTILLED WATER!

Yes, I'm shouting.

As for mixture. A 50/50 mix provides protection from freezing down to about -35°F.
A 60% water/40% antifreeze mix has freeze protection down to about -25°F.
A 67% water/33% antifreeze mix has freeze protection down to about -15°F.

If you live in the great white north, where temperatures get even colder than -35°F, you can run as much as 70% antifreeze with 30% water, and you'll be safe from freezing down to about -65°F.

Water transfers heat better than ethylene glycol, so for optimum cooling, it's generally best to run as much water as you can, and as little antifreeze as you can for the temperatures you'll be exposing it to. In Florida, I usually run about 2 parts water to 1 part antifreeze. In north Georgia, I tend to run closer to 60% water, 40% antifreeze for a little more protection.

 

Best answer Ive see all day! 100% correct!

IF, you already have coolant in your block. (Its hard to get it all out) I would use a little more DEXCOOL to get to the correct mixture. I always adjust to my climate location so I get the best heat transfer. USE DISTILLED WATER!!

 

Please don't

https://www.hyperlube.com/blog/blog/...ooling-system/

I know a lot of you feel better about using distilled water, but the reality it can lead to corrosion as it pulls ions out of the metallics in your cooling system. It's the same reason you have to keep the calcium hardness of a plaster pool above a certain range.

 

Hmmmm… The GM OWNERS states: 50/50 mixture of clean, drinkable water and use only GM Goodwrench
DEX-COOL
or Havoline
DEX-COOL
Coolant. See “Engine Coolant” in the Index.


IF, I put the untreated hard water that my well provides into my coolant system, it would scale up and clog the radiator. It is perfectly good drinkable water but, you should see what it does to the furnace (BOILER) and copper pipes.

I'm very sure that what ever brand antifreeze that you use, it contains the proper water conditioners and anti leaching additives that are required to protect the metal parts of the cooling system with what ever water that you use. I trust the Distilled water over hard well water or the city water that is full of chlorine and high dissolved solids. I've been using distilled water since 1998 in ALL of my C5 and I have never had ANY issues with the radiator, hoses, water pumps block etc..

Where I work, we use Deionized Water for a number of different systems. Deionized water is NOT safe to drink and NOT safe to use in a cooling system due to the exact same thing that WCINX discusses.

I'm going to call out to one of my contacts at the GM Plant in Bowling Green and see what they use to dilute their antifreeze. I will post up what I find out. Reguardless, I will still use distilled water for my cooling system,

Bill

 

Sooo ... GM makes no mention of distilled water then ... got it.

Scaling would imply that you have ions coming out of solution and depositing themselves on the interior surface(s) of your cooling system. And the only time the ion concentration in the solution gets high enough for that to happen is if you're continually boiling that water off and adding new (hard) water. If you pick up a bottle of intentionally hard "mineral" water e.g. Perrier, do you see scale in the bottle? Of course you don't. But if you open that bottle, heat it up enough to boil all the water off, add more mineral water, repeat 10x ... THEN you see the scale start to form, correct? So if you have scale building up in your radiator, then I would challenge someone to try to figure out why they keep having to add more water to that system.

Personally I've never used anything but clean water from a hose (as per GM's recommendation apparently) and I've never had any scale buildup in any of my cars nor had any cooling issues that could be traced back to excessive mineralization.

 

You didn't ask which water to use, but Prestone themselves recommends distilled. Click on the instruction tab and it says in about the 3rd paragraph.

https://prestone.com/products?detail=AF888

Mixture is on the bottle. Use the least amount of coolant to meet your freezing requirements if you want to save some money and let the system cool better (as already mentioned).


Not being able to drink de-ionized water is a myth, kind of like some other stuff being posted here. There seems to be a basic lack of understanding about de-ionized water vs distilled water.

The de-ionizing process only removes the ions, which are charged non-organic particles, while all other particles remain behind. The overall purity of this water depends on what other filtering or processing is done to it besides de-ionizing.

True distilled water has both the ions as well as any other particles or impurities removed. Of course, the purity depends on how well it's been distilled.

If you couldn't drink de-ionized water then you also couldn't drink distilled water. But, you can drink both and neither will kill you. Fun fact - ships often have a distiller on-board that is used to distill sea water into drinkable water.

My conclusion - If distilled is recommended then it would be the best one to use, but de-ionized would be second best and work similarly.

 

well i trust many on this forum.

I trust dr. Bill and dr. E.T. on here with their knowledge.

 

 

No it is not. Drinking either long-term in large quantities can potentially be very bad for you as it can pull those same ions out of your cells. However the reality is that once it intermingles with whatever else you've consumed it will in all likelihood achieve a sufficient ionic pressure as to not leach harmful amounts from your body. But if your diet had a very low mineral content to begin with and you're pounding 4 gallons of water per day ...

I'm well aware of what both entail, and you explained things adequately. And in this case, it's actually irrelevant which we're talking about since, as you pointed out, distillation has the effect of de-ionization (and some).

I am a little surprised that Prestone recommends distilled water. I suspect it's their way of assuring a clean water source and because they know a sufficient ionic pressure will be achieved when the water goes into solution with their product. Regardless I stand by the statement of, "If you see scale forming in your radiator, then you need to address why you're boiling water off in the first place."

 

Fine, if your diet is crap and your health is poor and you drink gallons and gallons of distilled water.... BLA, BLA, BLA. What part of that equates to not being able to drink it, as in you should not drink any amounts of it?

I will still stand by my statement. "Not being able to drink de-ionized water is a myth."

As for Prestone. I'm no surprised. They don't buy into internet claims.

This attacking the metal thing is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. It's not like adding distilled water will cause the coolant to constantly eat away at the system metals or anything nearly as stupid as that. In fact, a mixture of distilled water and coolant will not be attacking the metals at all once it's mixed assuming the coolant is a decent quality with the proper ingredients to protect a cooling system.

Overall, your cooling system was a piece of crap that was ready to fail if you think adding distilled water caused the failure to happen.

 

So does anyone know what kind of water is used in the pre-mixed antifreeze?

 

Heavy water.

 

I said nothing of the sort. All I claimed was that it could lead to corrosion. Distilled/deionized water will want to pull ions from their container until a stable ionic pressure in solution is reached. But FWIW I can flip your logic around and again try to explain that if you're seeing scale forming from tap water then you need to address the root cause of why you keep having to add water as opposed to ensuring that you only add water with low ionic pressure.

 

I never wrote anything about scale formations....

Deionized water won't do anything harmful once it's mixed with a quality coolant.

 

Distlled water also won't do anything harmful once it's mixed with a quality coolant (or even DexCool®).

I've never seen corrosion in any engine, radiator or heater core I have worked on that I know has had distilled water (mixed with antifreeze or at least corrosion inhibitors and seal lubricant) in it. Some race cars that I've prepped have run where ethylene glycol is prohibited, and those cars ran several seasons with distilled water, water wetter and an anti-corrosion/water pump seal lubricant additive. Even with only distilled water plus additivers, I saw no corrosion in the cooling systems of those race cars.

I have seen radiators and heater cores completely clogged and scale deposits in the block of engines that have been run with tap water. I will admit that scale is a bigger problem when the cooling system has leaks or a weak pressure cap, and it's loosing coolant/water and you keep adding more tap water to top it up (adding more minerals to create more scale).

For those who think their tap water is "good enough," there's a way to check your tap water. Get a very clean saucepan or fry pan (stainless steel is best, or polished unfinished aluminum). Put exactly one teaspoon of your tap water in the pan and put the pan on the stove on medium heat until the water all boils off. Note how much residue, scale and powdery residue is left in the pan from one teaspoon of your tap water. If you mix your coolant 50/50 with tap water, you'll be putting 1209.6 times as much mineral scale in your cooling system as you see in the pan. If you mix 2/3rds tap water with 1/3rd coolant, you'll be putting 1612.8 times as much mineral scale in your cooling system as you see in the pan.