damn y'all!! I was just reading on these newsgroups about the antifreeze thing, and how you have to use silicate-free antifreeze on hondas.. blah blah blah... and so i go to autozone-- they never heard of such a thing. I got to my honda dealer, and the dude there tells me that any antifreeze is fine as long as it's green (which i thought was especially odd since they were selling the honda antifreeze-- so i could only take is advice as honest), but he had never heard of the silicate thing either. Of course I had orange in my car that i put in there four years ago when i didn't know how to confuse myself with usenet groups. Since it really needed to be flushed anyway, and KMart had a sale on Prestone-- I flushed it yesterday and put in Prestone. And now I'm hearing prestone is bad too!? Ughhhh... All the auto parts places have Honda power steering fluid! Why can't they have Honda coolant? maybe it's just not that big a deal. I mean Honda says not to put orange shit in the coolant, and my '95 civic has done admirably with it for the last four years. I dunno... Sometime I wonder if Honda corporate are on these boards just to get us pay the extra money for the same things. So should I flush my radiator again with Honda Antifreeze? What adverse effects can i expect from my 4 year use of orange crap? What adverse effects can I expect from the green Prestone? any other advice for the antifreeze challenged? (mine is a '95 Civic DX) thanks! -mr speck
Honda is like a retarded child, you gotta give it special attention. .................... I do not killfile nor use do-not-call lists.
(Mr. Speck) melodiously murmured in Prestone makes a Long-Life mix that will do just fine. (I always use Honda coolant anyway, for the little extra cost.) Ordinary Prestone (the stuff that isn't clear) has silicates in it. It's not really made for a car that has its water pump under the timing belt. Silicates in an aluminum block do not provide the correct anti-corrision protection.
Don't lose sleep over it. What's done is done, plus no one can really tell you how "bad" it was to put the orange stuff in there. I've known many (uninformed) Honda owners use the cheapest coolant they can get their hands on, and their cars last just as long. Plus, I have a feeling that most (if not all) of Honda's insistence on using their vertical monopoly on fluids and car parts is just for profit. C'mon, do you REALLY want to pay more for Honda oil?!
Well... I've noticed that the Honda 5w20 is usually cheaper than anyone else's... so if my car required that, then I would rather pay less for the Honda oil. But as far as this anti-freeze is concerned, I have used the Honda stuff in most of my cars, but have seen many shops and dealerships use green Prestone for many years (and many timing belt and water pump replacements) without a single problem of any sort. Since some people claim to have seen different, what is an extra 5 bucks for a little extra protection...
I've found that even many knowledgeable automotive people aren't good about car chemicals. You should be fine with Prestone, even though it has silicate in it, but in two years I'd switch to Honda or Toyota antifreeze. As far as I know, the only silicate-free aftermarket antifreeze widely available in North America is Dex-cool, sold as orange/red longlife coolants (5 years or 150,000 miles), such as Havoline Extended Life and Prestone 5/150, but you don't want to use it in your Honda because its additives are very different. Color isn't a reliably way to distinguish antifreeze types because Toyota has one that looks like Dex-cool but is actually very different from it and is almost identical to conventional green coolant, only it's silicate-free. Toyota antifreeze is sometimes sold at parts stores, at least those that specialize in foreign brand cars. Whether you get Honda or Toyota antifreeze, get the 100% concentrate, not the pre-diluted, which costs about the same but substitutes half the antifreeze with 50 cents worth of distilled water.
I didn't bother to get Honda antifreeze until my Civic need a SECOND water pump replacement at 85k miles. Now I spend the extra $5. Hell, it only takes like half a gallon or something. I even made my dealer remove the recycled coolant he put in my wife's Accord and replace it with the Honda coolant. You can't even trust the dealer to use the right stuff. Spudston
The supposed "experts" at parts counters are very often wrong ... yet they manage to make themselves sound knowledgeable! John
Well, look at this way......the parts guy is just supporting himself and his employer down the road when you need to replace parts prematurely from using the wrong fluids.
John,& Larry If you read your any Honda Manuel it will say to use non silicate antifreeze in your Honda. This is particular to the 5year coolants on the market. GM Dex-Cool antifreeze is a non Silicate coolant and it is orange. Coolant color has nothing to do with it. If I were you I would use the longer term coolant that will say on the label "silicate free". There is more info on silicate at http://www.prestone.com/ Use non silicate coolant in any all aluminum engine. I hope this helps. Mike
Prestone (the green stuff at least) destroyed 3 water pumps in my 2 1990 Integras. One died in 6 weeks, the other two in less than 6 months. I'm talking about cars that only had about 30,000 miles on them. Do the best flush you possibly can, and get Honda coolant in there asap. Car parts places never heard of this because they also sell you the new water pump. IT IS A SCAM. Regarding the OAT orange coolant, I don't think this is much of a problem. Certainly it is far better than Prestone green crap. JM
(JM) wrote in the anti freeze didn`t do a thing to your water pumps ya nut. no difference in the seals for either antifreeze. also low silica is the extended life antifreeze. KB
This is exactly the opposite of everything I have heard from Honda for the past decade or so. What is your source for this insight?
