Back in the summer my Ford focus had its radiator holed by a small stone and started to leak, I was going to replace it but it appeared to be such a nightmare job (in comparison to the ten minutes it took to remove the one in my old Astra) that I fixed it instead with a recommended substance called (fixed for life) K-seal, it has to be said that this stuff has performed brilliantly over a pretty hard driving > 6000 mile period. Now that the colder weather is here I've belatedly realized that I replaced the lost coolant (from memory around a couple of litres) with soft water, checking the car handbook it tells me that it should only be replaced with 'Ford orange' coolant which has a life expectancy of around 10 years, on paying a visit to my local motor spares shop they sold me a litre bottle of 'CarPlan Premium Red Anti-Freeze', which they assured me was an equivalent and would be OK, however before draining and topping up I thought that I would seek some advice from the ever helpful professionals on this newsgroup.
TIA Ivan