Coolant

[chemie]

Manual says "ethylene glycol" which is as generic as it gets. Do I need to use Toyota brand or will any 5-year Prestone brand work fine too?

(96 Camry 4cyc Dx)

[Marcluv]

yes it works fine for me, i did my flush about a week ago and everything is still ok

[hill8570]

Religious question. Can't say I've ever heard of anyone having a cooling system failure they could pin on running non-Toyota coolant, 'tho.

IMHO, the water you use for dilution is far more important than the coolant -- tap water in many areas of the country has far too much crap in it to be allowed anywhere near a cooling system. Spend a couple extra $$$ and use distilled water.

[chemie]

I always use bottled water (pure not mineral!) but saw several folks saying they use "Toyota red" which surprised me....

[Nervous]

Bottled water (if not distilled) still contains minerals. I have TDS meter ("total dissolved solids"), it measures ions in the water. So, in my area tap water has about 120 ppm (particles per million), bottled water - about 50-70 ppm, reverse osmosis water - 4-9 ppm, distilled water - 0 ppm. Thus, use only distilled water, it is just a dollar per gallon in our grocery store.

[haux]

Originally Posted by chemie

I always use bottled water (pure not mineral!) but saw several folks saying they use "Toyota red" which surprised me....

Just about every grocery store sells gallons of distilled water anywhere from 50c to $1.00. That's actually cheaper than a small bottle of Aquafina/Dasani from a convenience store.

As for what coolant to use, I don't think anyone asked you if you're doing a flush or just adding. If adding, use whatever color of coolant is currently in there. If flushing, you can use either.

I personally switched over to Toyota red not too long ago. Even if it didn't provided any extra benefit, it's a change... and a pretty color. =)

[LynchburgCSI]

Toyota Red + Prestone + DISTILLED Water. Or any combo thereof. That's what most people run. Mine came from the factory with toyota red, but I switched to prestone when i replaced my radiator. Never heard of any damage being done to the cooling system due to mixing.

[haux]

Originally Posted by LynchburgCSI

Toyota Red + Prestone + DISTILLED Water. Or any combo thereof. That's what most people run. Mine came from the factory with toyota red, but I switched to prestone when i replaced my radiator. Never heard of any damage being done to the cooling system due to mixing.

I have never tried it myself, but I've read a lot of threads here where people say mixing red with green or yellow can turn the coolant sludgy?

[LynchburgCSI]

Originally Posted by haux

I have never tried it myself, but I've read a lot of threads here where people say mixing red with green or yellow can turn the coolant sludgy?

I had zero problems mixing it. For over 30,000 miles. I mean, if you wanna play it safe, than do so. But Prestone is supposed to be fine with all other ethylene glycol coolants.

[hill8570]

Originally Posted by haux

I have never tried it myself, but I've read a lot of threads here where people say mixing red with green or yellow can turn the coolant sludgy?

The only documented cases I've ever seen of this is when someone was using tap water, and mixing the two somehow caused some of the minerals in the water to precipitate out. Yet another reason to avoid tap water in coolant.

[ricamryman]

Why does the Toyota Red Coolant cost so much more than the others?

[LynchburgCSI]

Originally Posted by ricamryman

Why does the Toyota Red Coolant cost so much more than the others?

Because it's Toyota. It's supposed to have anti-rust agents in it, or something of the like. I see no reason for that if you use DISTILLED water. But some people like shelling out the few extra bucks. It is an engine after all.

[schumionbike]

I was told not to mix the Toyota coolant with the Honda coolant as those two will have negative chemical reaction and create scaling. I forgot the the chemical names of the Honda coolant. I think if you use you get any of the third parties mix with all coolant, you should be okay.

[LynchburgCSI]

Originally Posted by schumionbike

I was told not to mix the Toyota coolant with the Honda coolant as those two will have negative chemical reaction and create scaling. I forgot the the chemical names of the Honda coolant. I think if you use you get any of the third parties mix with all coolant, you should be okay.

Standard coolant = ethylene glycol. GM uses a coolant called DEXCOOL and this should NEVER NEVER EVER be used in systems that run ethylene glycol. Hondas use ethylene glycol... but I don't know why you'd want to put Honda coolant into a Toyota. Third party coolants are okay with Toyota red as I stated above.

[schumionbike]

Originally Posted by LynchburgCSI

Standard coolant = ethylene glycol. GM uses a coolant called DEXCOOL and this should NEVER NEVER EVER be used in systems that run ethylene glycol. Hondas use ethylene glycol... but I don't know why you'd want to put Honda coolant into a Toyota. Third party coolants are okay with Toyota red as I stated above.

Thanks, I had a coolant flush a while back and there was scaling on my car. The mechanic said something to me about not mixing coolant but I clearly do not remember fully. Thanks for clearing it up. Just for the record, I did not mix the coolant, it was the previous owner .