any - Colour of coolant

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Tue 25 Jun 2013 15:03
any - Colour of coolant - Andrew-T

For many years fresh coolant always seemed to be royal blue. Recently all the coolant I have noticed - including the bulk supply my indy uses - is orange. This forum mentions all sorts of colours - is there a standard? I wondered if blue was discontinued to prevent confusion with screenwash ...

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Tue 25 Jun 2013 17:44
any - Colour of coolant - madf

Orange = OAT.

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Tue 25 Jun 2013 18:32
any - Colour of coolant - Peter.N.

The orange/red coolant I believe has a longer life but I don't think its advisable to mix it with the blue.

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Tue 25 Jun 2013 21:29
any - Colour of coolant - Cyd

blue is the old style "standard" coolant with a basic 2 year corrosion package.

red / orange is modern organic acid technology (OAT) corrosion package with a service life of 5 years.

there is also some purple super long life stuff with a service life of 10 years, but I've never clapped eyes on any personally.

As suggested, don't mix types.

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Tue 25 Jun 2013 21:31
any - Colour of coolant - Cyd

PS: you can still get the traditional blue stuff, but fewer and fewer cars will accept it these days.

they all use ethylene glycol as the base anti freeze agent.

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Wed 26 Jun 2013 05:45
any - Colour of coolant - balleballe

My coolant looks green and hasnt been changed in at least 18 months. So its the blue stuff im assuming here

Looks like its time to change it.

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Wed 26 Jun 2013 13:22
any - Colour of coolant - TeeCee

Unipart's ordinary stuff (and possibly others too) is green. You'd know if it was that though, it's a really garish bright green colour.

Shows up leaks a treat, which is presumably the purpose.

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