Table of Contents
Most people think of antifreeze or coolant as green. For years many antifreeze/coolants were green in color but now many coolants come in a variety of colors. Antifreeze or coolant can be yellow, pink or red, blue, and green.
What color should antifreeze coolant be?
Fresh antifreeze is a clear brightly coloured liquid, usually blue, red, green, violet, yellow or orange but this will vary depending on the manufacturer’s formulation. Over time, your coolant will become dirty losing its colour and becoming darker, often an oxidized shade of brown.
What is the difference between antifreeze colors?
What’s the difference between green and orange coolant? Both orange and green antifreeze serve as engine coolants, designed to keep it from freezing or overheating. They also defend the cooling system against corrosion. Green is formulated for the former, and orange, the latter.
What happens if you use the wrong color antifreeze?
What Happens if You Use the Wrong Coolant? It’s important to note that the type of coolant you should use can’t accurately be identified by color. Using the wrong coolant can lead to corrosion and other damages to the radiator, water pump, radiator hoses, cylinder gasket, and more.
What do different colors of coolant mean?
If antifreeze is green, that probably means it was made from an older formula that uses something called Inorganic Additive Technology. Green antifreeze is made with special tweaks to the formula specifically to help prevent the corrosion of metals in a vehicle’s cooling system.
Can I use blue coolant instead of green?
Yes, you can mix the new blue with your old green, as he says. Honda does it all the time. My own personal car has a radiator and a block that I drain rather than fill with blue coolant.
Why is my antifreeze dark?
Black coolant can be caused by deterating radiator hoses, crud in the cooling system, and oil getting into the coolant. Not only engine oil from a blown head gasket, or an intake manifold leak, but transmission fluid from a leak in the cooler in the radiator.
Is it OK to mix green and orange antifreeze?
Some people believe that they can mix the two. This is a mistake and can lead to expensive repairs. The two coolants should never be mixed together as they do not react well. When mixed together they can form a thick, jelly-like substance that can completely stop all coolant flow which can lead to overheating.
Can I use green antifreeze instead of orange?
Can I mix green coolant with orange coolant? This is one of those questions usually asked after the fact, and usually engine damage has already occurred. The green and orange coolants do not mix. When mixed together they form a gel-like substance that stops coolant flow, and consequently, the engine overheats.
Can you mix yellow and green coolant?
You can mix two different colors of the same kind of coolant without any problem whatsoever. But if you mix a significant amount of one type in with the other type, you’re weakening your corrosion inhibitors (it happened to my brother, and look at the condition he’s in now).
What is orange antifreeze?
One of the new types is “organic acid technology,” or OAT. It’s orange. Instead of OAT, most new cars now use a “hybrid” antifreeze that’s formulated with both OAT and the silicate inhibitors from green (Japanese hybrids have different inhibitors). It comes in too many colors to pretend this type is color-coded.
Can I use blue antifreeze instead of red?
Antifreeze Red is suitable for all year-round usage in automotive and commercial petrol and diesel engines and in certain industrial applications. Antifreeze Blue is a full concentrate which meets BS6580 and contains the same pure ethylene glycol and anti-corrosive additives as the Red.
What type of coolant is pink?
The Colors of Coolant TYPE INHIBITOR TECHNOLOGY COLOR HOAT (Hybrid OAT) Silicates & Organic Acids YELLOW HOAT (Hybrid OAT, Phosphate-free) NAP Free TURQUOISE P-HOAT (Phosphated HOAT) Phosphates & Organic Acids PINK Si-OAT (Silicated HOAT) Silicates & Organic Acids PURPLE.
How do I know which antifreeze to use?
You should check your owner’s manual, to check on what type or color of antifreeze your car takes. One of the most common, and longstanding coolants of this type is DEX COOL®, which was developed by GM in the late 1980’s and has been used ever since.
What is the difference between antifreeze and coolant?
Well, antifreeze and engine coolant are similar, but not the same. Antifreeze is a concentrated, glycol-based liquid that must be diluted with water before use – at which point it is referred to as coolant. Engine coolant is a mixture of antifreeze and water, with a common ratio of 50:50.
Can you mix red and green antifreeze?
It’s perfectly backwards compatible if you want to do that. But you really don’t want to mix them, it’s not that good of an idea to mix them. If you want to have the correct coolant added for you, consider YourMechanic. They will be able to come to your home or office to perform this service.
What’s the difference between blue antifreeze and green?
Both coolants will work equally as well in your Nissan, so in terms of a performance benefit there really isn’t a difference. We personally would probably use Nissan Green as it comes in concentrated form (makes it a bit cheaper) and feel that changing the coolant more regularly is better for preventative maintenance.
Are all blue coolants the same?
GM, for example, uses orange-colored Dex-Cool antifreeze, while VW’s preferred coolants are typically yellow- or blue-colored, Hemmings reports. These different types of antifreeze all do broadly the same things.
What color is type 2 antifreeze?
Honda Genuine Longlife Blue Antifreeze/Coolant provides long-term corrosion protection to all metal and non-metal parts of your Honda’s cooling system and protects against boil over and freezing.
