About Antifreeze

I last added water for the car about 4 months ago but i forgot to add some antifreeze deos this damage the car? (today i will add the antifreeze needed). what is the antifreeze needed for in the car?

Reply to
Erhanboy
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It lowers the freezing point and thereby protects against cold weather. It increases the boiling point and thereby allows the engine to run hotter (which has an effect on emissions). A small deficiency of antifreeze in the coolant is inconsequential. Jim

Reply to
Jim

It also protects against internal corrosion which is essential with an ally engine.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Indeed,

I trashed a car of mine over the course of 50,000 miles with an improper balance (far too little) of water/antifreeze. Corrosion is the worry, change your antifreeze yearly.

Thanks, Mark

Reply to
Mark D

Yearly is overkill. It will last at least 2, some say 3 years. And it is "coolant" not just antifreeze.

Reply to
Fred W

Same here. I usually change it every 2 years and it still looks like the day I put it in. I feel it is overkill but coolant is cheap and it is usually very easy to change. This is the regular green stuff. Haven not changed the BMW coolant out but it is on my list of todo.

I've seen what neglect can do as well. Clogged radiators, cracked heads, etc.

Reply to
RT

Well yes - but the colour is probably just a dye. It's the antifreeze and anti-corrosion properties that matter, and you can't tell how those have survived by looking. Same as with oil.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Well, if the coolant is a murky brown colour you can be pretty sure it's not doing much good.

Reply to
adder1969

Interestingly antifreeze reduces the cooling ability of the coolant and the car will runn cooler with just water but it's not enough to worry about.

Reply to
adder1969

True if it's a cast iron donk. How old is your BMW?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Don't even think about it with an aluminium engine or even just head.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

My car is 2006 model E90

Reply to
Erhanboy

It increases the boiling point and thereby allows the engine to run hotter

The engine does not run hotter with coolant. That's crap Your statement implies that your engine management system analyses the content of the coolant - it does not. The engine does not boil with plain water unless there is a fault. It certainly does not alter its running temperature when coolant is included. I am also unconvinced hotter engines are better on emissions - please explain.

Reply to
DCA

Utter crap. Approved coolant (with antifreeze included) assist in more efficient heat dissipation.

Reply to
DCA

Then ignore this thread for a couple of years.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

You obviously don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Adding antifreeze (aka coolant) reduces the mixture's ability to carry away heat as compared to plain water a small amount. However, the coolant mixture can be brought to a higher temperature before it will boil.

That does not mean the engine will be hotter, that is controlled by the thermostat (not the ECU). But if any part of the engine cooling system happens to get above 212F plain water will vaporize, and water vapor does a *really* bad job of cooling. The recomended 50% mix of BMW coolant (Glysantin G-48) will raise the boiling point to 265F.

Consider that when you have a 195 degree thermostat, that is the temperature that the "stat" tries to regulate the coolant at. Since the coolant will always be a little cooler than the average engine temperature we can assume that there will be spots in the engine that will be marginally hotter and cooler than the average. So any one spot inside the engine only needs to be 7 degrees hotter than the average and poof! Boiling starts. Once you get vapor bubbles in the coolant it's ability to cool decreases rapidly and the heat will run-away and you soon have a boil-over.

So yes, using a coolant mix is important. Otherwise you should run a much lower temp t-stat (175-180F)

Reply to
Fred W

"DCA" wrote

The main difference between US and EU emissions standards are centered the engine warmup period. In the US, the period allowed for higher emissions just after starting a cold engine is much shorter than the EU standard. This means that the catalytic converter is located closer to the manifold and that we have an air pump to add air to the exhaust stream to provide a quicker light-off of the converter.

A hotter-running engine is not necessarily better for emissions (after all, that generally increases NOx emissions - ala diesels), however, it does increase the EFFICIENCY (simple thermo- dynamics) of the engine, and allow better catalyst performance. Both of those lead (indirectly) to lower emissions.

FloydR

Reply to
Floyd Rogers

I second that.

Doesn't the fact that it is pressurized also raise the boiling point ?

Reply to
RT

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