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More questions , this time coolant

Remmoc

Active Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2019
Messages
117
Location
Yeovil
Car
C180 Kompressor
So ive got a 2006 C180K and wish to top up up the coolant , its a bit low but hasnt altered since i bought it 3 months ago .
Supposedly it should have blue antifreeze however this is either red or maybe pink ( depends at what light you look at it)
So can anyone tell from this whats in it , i know you cant mix red or pink or blue etc etc but i dont want to put the wrong stuff in .
Is red ( assuming it is indeed red ) OK in this engine .
Any help / advise would be most helpful 75220812_10221049391604122_7769445398644523008_n.jpg
 
The factory-filled coolant is good for 15 years so if the car still has the original coolant then I wouldn't mix it with anything other than the original MB coolant.
 
The factory-filled coolant is good for 15 years so if the car still has the original coolant then I wouldn't mix it with anything other than the original MB coolant.
Factory is supposedly blue so its been changed at some point
 
In the olden days we used to make our own coolant.

We'd buy Ethylene Glycol in 10L cans, mix it with soft water, and add a pack of corrosion inhibitors (Wynns etc).

The Ethylene Glycol is yellow with a greenish hue, so we'd add some food colouring to make it blue. Not sure why but at the time all coolants were blue... a yellow coolant would just look silly, so we died them blue.

If you wanted to spoil yourself you'd but 1L cans of ready-to-use Fiat Paraflu, which was one of the best coolants available on the market at the time (and which was of course blue).

Then, at some point, red coolant started to apear on the market, to indicate that it was 'long life' (i.e. it needed to be replaced every 4 or 5 years as opposed to the standard coolant that needed replacing every 1 or 2 years).

The idea behind long-life coolant systems isn't just cost saving, they also produce less sediment and corrosion compared to systems where the coolant if frequently changed, so long-life coolant is actually better for your engine.

My point is that the colour is what the manufacturer wants it to be.... they simply dye it. It is not derived from the chemical make up of the coolant.
 
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