Quality Coolant Is As Important In Winters As It Is In Summers. Invest In Some Today!
Coolants are one thing that we seriously take for granted here in Pakistan. Folks with older cars don’t even bother. Sada pani zindabad. I also own an old car and have been running water for as long as I could remember. I did use to have proper anti-freeze, but my car went through so many workshops and leaks, and I wasted so much coolant that I just stopped caring about it. But I once again decided to get some coolant. Bought a pre-mixed ZIC coolant for Rs 1435. Drained rusty and muddy water from the radiator, poured some fresh water and ran the engine for few minutes, drained that water as well and poured the new green stuff. Long story short the coolant is leaking, and I can’t find from where, but that’s not the point.
The point I am trying to make is that when I went to buy the coolant from local lub shop, I couldn’t find the one I wanted. The guy there told me coolants are not winter’s products, and they are not in demand, so they don’t have a large variety present at the moment. According to him, they only sell in summers. It was news to me to be honest. It’s called ‘anti-freeze’. You freeze in winters. So why not used use it in cold weathers/winters. And yes I know they are also called anti-boil and are important for summers as well but the fact that people don’t bother with them in winters, I found it strange.
But I do think coolants are necessary for winters as well as summers. One of the jobs of coolant is to keep water in the system from freezing. So if you are living in cold regions, or if you are planning to visit our beautiful northern areas in November, December, January, you should have proper coolant in your vehicle’s system.
And I am not saying this out of nowhere. Let me share my personal experience with you guys. I was living in another country few years back where the temperature drops to well below zero Celsius. It was winters, and I had just bought my first car, a Toyota Starlet. I had been using it for few days, and it was going flawlessly. One night the temperature fell to below zero Celsius. Next morning, when I started the car, I heard some excruciating whines and screams from the engine. I didn’t know what it was. I raced the car couple of times, and some smoke started to erupt from the sides of the bonnet. I thought to myself; I have blown the engine or something. I immediately turned the car off, opened the hood and to my surprise, the belt that runs through the water body pulley was toasted and had ripped into pieces. The belt had melted. I don’t have the photos of that belt, but you can see the residue of melted rubber on the pulley in the photos below:
The water inside the system had frozen overnight since there was no coolant (anti-freeze). That made the fins of the water body trapped inside the solid ice. When I started the car, it couldn’t rotate with the engine and when I accelerated a couple of times, the belt overheated and burnt due to the friction from the stuck water body pulley.
Coolants are usually primarily made up of propylene glycol or ethylene glycol. Most of the coolants you seen in the market today for cars is 
made up of ethylene glycol. Ethylene Glycol basically interferes with the hydrogen atoms when mixed with water. When water freezes, it expands and can damage the internals of an engine. The chemicals like propylene glycol or ethylene glycol stop water from freezing. And then there is the benefit of stopping the rust. Using water for an extended period of time can cause massive corrosion inside the radiator and other engine parts.
So yeah, you should get your car some quality coolant, summers or winters. If you have some leaks in the system, get them fixed first, though. ZIC 4-liter pre-mixed coolant was for Rs 1435 and Caltex 1-liter concentrate was for Rs 800. These are the only two I inquired about. Spend a little now and you might save yourself from a long term damage.
I am using 92 suzuki Khyber , first I dont know whether it leaks water or not secondly which colant to use?
Zic (pre-diluted) solution is best… another option is to buy suzuki’s own (pre-diluted) solution.. Zic is best amongst all (this is my personal experience)
I have Own Suzuki Alto 2003 recently changed rusty water to coolant, one month working fine, purchase prediluted FUCH coolant @rs. 270/liter, buy from Hascol petrol pump shahrafaisal, buy only 3 bottles and pour 2 in radiator and one in side plastic bottle, changed rusty water with coolant… Satisfied Thanks to Pakwheels for guidance
How it is used? should it be mixed with water or use the solution only ?
But is it true that coolant might “eat up” engine blocks?
Various improvements:
“local lub shop”. Please proofread.
“I couldn’t find the one I wanted”. Maybe the writer wants to say he couldn’t find *many* choices. There could have been millions of types from thousands of brands yet still “couldn’t find the one I wanted” could be true.
“So why not used[sic] use it in cold weathers/winters”
“there was no coolant (anti-freeze)”. Please avoid confusion between coolant and anti-freeze. Water is definitely a coolant and in workshop terminology also, coolant is what flows through the radiator & water body circuit and you could put anything there. Just that water is not a purpose-made coolant and anti-freeze is a purpose-made coolant. If you write that there was no coolant means the radiator & water body circuit had no fluid at all. Actually a paragraph down, the distinction is mentioned beautifully using the term “proper coolant”.
“the fact that people don’t bother with them in winters, I found it strange”. Not strange at all. In Pakistan heat-up is a bigger problem and even though freezing temperatures are experienced, water is contaminated enough to have a freezing point well below zero degree. The cooling system gives problem only in summer therefore people bother only in the summers and not in the winter.
“If you have some leaks in the system, get them fixed first, though”. This is misguiding. While it is true that water is free so people would keep running their cars without getting the repair work done whilst topping it up ever so often, it is also true that anti-freeze comes with chemicals designed to remove corrosion and will open up new avenues of leakage which were present before but were weakly held together thus stopping the leakage.
“Spend a little now and you might save yourself from a long term damage”. A busted belt? Possibility of water expanding and damaging the internals of the engine? Could it be classified as long term damage? Or immediate damage? There is mention of “massive” corrosion making it appear like mountains of rust but how that corrosion would cause some really expensive long term damage has not been discussed. Whereas it is common observation that plumbing lines etc. would have long term rust but still work fine, and readers could use their same observation for automotive use too.
gr8
Improvements in the blog suggested by #Guest are simply superb.
The writer coming from a cold country was in that state of mind probably
The best coolant in market is Toyota Pre-mixed. Any Premixed coolant do not require water. It should pour solely.
Toyota red wine coolant is best for toyota cars you should use toyota coolant for cars