Outer Limits 4x4 Board

just a question about what coolant the vitara 1.6 efi's like or dont like. is there a coolant that the vit doesnt like or is any coolant, glycol based or not, fine. the reason i ask is at the back of my head i remember there is something that might not be appropiate but not sure if it was about coolant.

im wanting to get the nulon anti-freeze/boli stuff that last 4 yrs. is this fine without corroding the insides or affecting anything?

i've been using toyota long life... its great stuff (red)... almost every person mechanically inclined thats noticed im running it swears by it too.

When i had a cloggy radiator, just adding this stuff actually lowered my temp over standard supercheap green coolant (nulon).

gotta be careful with the toyota long life (red).
as its very strong. can eat through head gaskets if it isnt diluted properly. i prefer the toyota super longlife. (pink).
also its already pre mixed which is handy.

i dont really feel comfortable puting stuff in that has popential to eat throught a head gasket.

anyone one else can add to this coolant question?

lol only if you dont mix it at the right ratio =) the instructions are pretty clear as to how much water to how much coolant to mix - i did mine in our kitchen rubbish bin (clean of course) and bottled the left over after flushing the system out... lasts forever if you do it that way too!

even at the right ratio it can be to strong.
an example is when a coolant flush is done say on a camry and 6 months later it comes in for a service and its weeping out all the hoses etc. its cause the coolant is to strong on an old vehicle.
but to answer ur question yes any coolant should be fine.
just flush out the old stuff properly. cause it may not mix well with the new.

by the way ive got toyota super long life in my sierra and my girls vitara.
and never had a problem.
if i didnt work for toyota id run nulon or similar. or u could just get suzuki genuine to keep u from stressin bout it. proly same price as nulon!?

zukiviagra: what coolant are u talking about, the red stuff or standard green stuff. is the weeping at the hoses just old hoses that need replacing?

and to alien: is the pre mixed(pink) stuff the same thing in the correct ratio?

not sure - i've never used the pink stuff...

i've used nulon's premixed equivalent to toyota long life which is also red (but not as dark red) and had no issues.

I found the green coolants seemed to clag up really quick in my zuk once a bit of mud or dust got into the water, whereas the red coolants for some reason dont seem to "stick" to the mud...

And yes i do flush the system out regularly when seeing a lot of offroad =)

alien wrote:not sure - i've never used the pink stuff...

i've used nulon's premixed equivalent to toyota long life which is also red (but not as dark red) and had no issues.

I found the green coolants seemed to clag up really quick in my zuk once a bit of mud or dust got into the water, whereas the red coolants for some reason dont seem to "stick" to the mud...

And yes i do flush the system out regularly when seeing a lot of offroad =)

How are you getting mud into your system? Should it not be a sealed system? Unless it gets into the overflow bottle?

yeah overflow bottle... it sucks up dirty water when it gets submerged... lol what can i say... the zuk loves to swim.

red = toyota long life
pink= totota super long life

red (toyota) coolant seems to be to hardcore on an old engine.
pink coolant in my opinion is better
like i said iv even seen it weeping around the heads on a 1uz 100 series cruiser. couple of months after having had a flush.

im only talkin about toyota coolants as thats all iv really used in my cars.