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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.
Does the color of antifreeze matter?
The truth is, color is not a reliable predictor for what type of coolant you have. For example, OAT coolants are usually orange, yellow, red or purple. Coolants that manufacturers sell can confuse matters even more, like Honda’s blue coolant.
What color is bad antifreeze?
The color of healthy engine coolant is green (for ethylene glycol) or orange (for Dexcool). A rusty color indicates that the rust inhibitor in the coolant has broken down and it can no longer control rust and scale buildup.
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.
What color is good antifreeze?
The Colors of Coolant TYPE INHIBITOR TECHNOLOGY COLOR IAT (Inorganic Additive Technology) Silicates GREEN OAT (Organic Acid Technology) Organic Acids ORANGE HOAT (Hybrid OAT) Silicates & Organic Acids YELLOW HOAT (Hybrid OAT, Phosphate-free) NAP Free TURQUOISE.
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.
Can I mix yellow and green antifreeze?
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).
Is green coolant bad for aluminum?
While the manufacturers of these coolants recommend only using them in an aluminum radiator, as opposed to the copper/brass radiators, we still don’t recommend them in our all-aluminum radiators. We recommend the traditional yellow/green coolant because it has always worked for us.
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.
Why does my coolant look brown?
Coolant becomes brown from rust. If your coolant is brown, the coolant needs to be drained and the system flushed before it can be filled with fresh coolant. If the coolant is bubbling, there is a good chance that combustion gases from the cylinders are making their way into the coolant.
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.
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.
Is orange coolant better than green?
Thankfully, both green and orange antifreeze last a while. Green for about 3-years or 36,000 miles, and orange for 5-years or 150,000 miles. A good rule of thumb is to inspect it at each oil change. If it’s rust-colored, it suggests the rust inhibitor has become ineffective.
What kind 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.
What is yellow antifreeze?
Opticool Antifreeze Yellow is an ethylene glycol based engine coolant concentrate, which uses Organic Acid Inhibitor Technology (OAT) and is free from nitrites, amines, phosphates, borates and silicates.
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.
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.
Is yellow and orange coolant the same?
In pictorial language it says “Do not use orange coolant; yellow coolant is okay.” It cautions “don’t use orange,” but the factory-installed coolant is orange. Lift the hood of a Chrysler product and you’ll see orange coolant in the jug and a “special engine coolant only” warning on the cap.
