what is orange coolant ?

That's a problem I've come across.

My Halfrauds coolant is blue, my car seems to be full of green stuff and the stuff on my mum's Vauxhall is orange. I understand one isn't meant to mix different types of coolant so what is the best option if one can't easily identify the type of coolant used in a particular car?

--Nick.

Orange Vauxhall collant is long life (5 years maybe) and you just buy it from Vauxhall, it's not that expensive.

Will

Halfrauds long life cooland is cheap from halfords. Is it really a crime to mix 'em?

--Nick.

You may find the radiator rots away from the inside if you mix incompatible types. It is not worth the risk, just get the right stuff.

mrcheerful

YES, the fashion police will arrest you :-)

Thanks for the replies. I had a look at the stuff at lunch time, the instructions say to flush out the system and not to mix. I'm going to leave it until I can do the job and top up with water if it goes too low :( ( off to France next week.. yippee !!)

Simon

Owners manual? I wouldn't mix the orange and green stuff. If in doubt drain the system and refill.

Yes.

Old antifreeze, the blue stuff was ethelyne glycol with silicate corrosin inhibiters and a three year service life.

They we had OAT and HOAT which were organic acid technology and hybrid OAT. These have a six or ten year life.

They use organic acids instead of alchol to provide antifreeze, don't use silicates for corrosion resistance (silicates are abrasive, so waterpumps have to be able to cope) and react with alcohol. You cannot mix the two. You also cannot be sure that you can swap antifreeze even after a cooling system flush as some antifreezes attack seals - japanese cars are prone to having incompatible seals. You need to use the correct stuff ideally.

In message , SimonP writes

The orange coolant uses a mild acid to etch itself onto the passages of your engine giving better and longer protection against corrosion. Ford have actually changed the colour of their orange coolant to purple although the spec remains the same. Here's a description of orange coolant which I lifted from a Jaguar enthusiast website :-

"A few years ago, someone thought a long-life coolant (original plan: life of vehicle) would be a Good Thing. This lead to Organic Acid Technology coolant (OAT), which is marketed as "DexCool" by GM and has been factory-fill in their products (except C4 Corvette -- not sure about C5 Corvette) since 1995. It's the orange or orangy-red stuff. Someone along the line decided the word "acid" was a Bad Thing to try to sell, so OAT was recursively changed to Organic Additive Technology. It can go 5 years/100Kor 150K miles -- provided it's not mixed with other coolant. OAT has less cavitation resistance than silicate-based coolant, and can attack certain sealing materials, so it's not a good idea to convert a green-coolant car over to OAT unless the manufacturer says it's okay. OAT also has a tendency to stain translucent plastics in things like overflow bottles and pressurized de-gas bottles with a funky brown crud. Oh, and OAT from one manufacturer isn't necessarily compatible with OAT from a different manufacturer".

Due to some strange stroke of luck it appears that my garage filled my car with orange coolant last week when they did its service and that the new Halfords coolant is also orange.

Everything in the world is now good again. Apart from me needing a new car without a failing head gasket. Oh well.

--Nick.