Coolant question concerning silicates

I posted this question inside another thread and didn't see any responses, but I was wondering, does using the OEM coolant, the Nissan stuff that contains no silicates really make the water oump last longer? When I say longer I'm talking about over 150K miles. Or does using the standard green Prestone, full of silicates, make no difference in the life of the water pump? Thanks.

CD

Reply to
Codifus
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Since I heard silicates were bad for our cars, I simply look at the ingredients/labels and get the silicate-free stuff at the store for the same price. I'm at 133k on original water pump (knocks on wood).

Is that what you mean?

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

That's exactly what I mean. The only lo silicate anti-freeze I could ever find in my area was Zerex. Now the auto stores only carry the many flavors of Prestone, none of which boast low silicates. That's why I end up buying the Nissan OEM coolant. It's quite a bit pricier than the commercially available ones.

What's the brand you use?

CD

Reply to
Codifus

I don't even know. I just get Autozone stuff that doesn't have anything named "* silic*" in the ingredients. I noticed that very few say anything about being silicate free, so I simply rely on the ingredients list. Whether thats sufficient I dunno but hey.

Dave

Reply to
David Geesaman

Everytime I've called *any* of the local dealers to buy the OEM coolant and parts guy always tells me to use the "green stuff". They never fail to mention that thats all they use when they service the cars. I think the only time they use Nissan branded fluids is for warranty work.

Nirav

96 Max GLE, 117k
Reply to
njmodi

I've got 193k on the original pump, and still going. I've used Nissan antifreeze the last three times I drained the radiator (every 30k). Prior to that, I used to take my car to the dealers, but I've heard that they use non-Nissan fluids unless requested by the customer.

Reply to
Filipp Stepanov

I have replaced three water pumps in three different Honda/Acuras. Each time leaking started within 20K miles after changing antifreeze to Prestone silicate formula. That was before I read about Japanese cars being designed for silicate-free formulations, how silicate corrosion inhibitors work and why it makes sense.

Nissans may not be so sensitive (and then again, they may) but the way I look at it is why chance it. Even Nissan OEM's price isn't that great considering how infrequently it's changed. But there are several silicate-free formulations in the stores... all work at least as well as OEM (many better) and are priced similar to Prestone green.

BuddyWh

Reply to
BuddyWh

Nissans are not as sensitive, but silicates aren't going to help any that's for sure. (My luck with Honda/Acura was more like 6 weeks to failure, and I killed 3 pumps before figuring it out. How Prestone avoided a class action I will never know.)

On the other hand, I switched to Texaco Dex-Cool at 37,000 miles, and my I30t's pump still failed at about 95,000. It's always a crap shoot.

Reply to
jmattis

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