Antifreeze/Coolant question

Furious_George

I bought a 1.4l 00 almera gx there this week, Its booked in for a full service on Wednesday. The coolant is quite near the minimum level marked on the reservoir. Is it safe to drive the car around until I get the mechanic to drain and change the coolant. I have been reading up and a lot of things I read say you should not mix different types of coolant and I dont know what has been used previously other than its blue so I haven't topped it up. The manual say to use an ethylene glycol based coolant.

demanufactured

Furious_George wrote: »

I bought a 1.4l 00 almera gx there this week, Its booked in for a full service on Wednesday. The coolant is quite near the minimum level marked on the reservoir. Is it safe to drive the car around until I get the mechanic to drain and change the coolant. I have been reading up and a lot of things I read say you should not mix different types of coolant and I dont know what has been used previously other than its blue so I haven't topped it up. The manual say to use an ethylene glycol based coolant.

Top it up with water.
Mechanic won't drain it.

ChicaneAuto

Be careful topping up with water, if it's an already diluted coolant your going to increase the freezing point, if it's prediluted the freezing point should be -15degrees or so if it's blue. If the previous owner has already topped it up with water it may be something like -7 and if you do it you'll end up getting very close to what temperatures have been lately.
If it's still above minimum, leave it, ask the mechanic to top it up and test its specific gravity.
Or if your like me and dont trust people, go to a motor factors and buy an antifreeze tester for about 5-8 euro and check it yourself.
If the coolant level on that engine keeps going down your head gasket could be gone, its relatively common on the 1.4 almera. (don't you hate a Cnut that says that?!?)

My two cents

Furious_George

ChicaneAuto wrote: »

Be careful topping up with water, if it's an already diluted coolant your going to increase the freezing point, if it's prediluted the freezing point should be -15degrees or so if it's blue. If the previous owner has already topped it up with water it may be something like -7 and if you do it you'll end up getting very close to what temperatures have been lately.
If it's still above minimum, leave it, ask the mechanic to top it up and test its specific gravity.
Or if your like me and dont trust people, go to a motor factors and buy an antifreeze tester for about 5-8 euro and check it yourself.
If the coolant level on that engine keeps going down your head gasket could be gone, its relatively common on the 1.4 almera. (don't you hate a Cnut that says that?!?)

My two cents

Cheers, Ill probably go down this route and leave it to the mechanic. I wont be driving too much between now and wed morning. I just bought the car and it seems to be running perfect so I wont be scaring myself thinking about head gasket and the likes until I get it checked over.

Buffman

Furious_George wrote: »

Cheers, Ill probably go down this route and leave it to the mechanic. I wont be driving too much between now and wed morning. I just bought the car and it seems to be running perfect so I wont be scaring myself thinking about head gasket and the likes until I get it checked over.

The car is perfectly ok to drive George. My one is pretty much around min (when cold) the whole time. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.) If it's anything like my one, you should notice a higher level in the expansion tank when the engine is hot.

Also, the GA14 engine has been around since the late 80's/early 90's in multiple cars, it can be considered very reliable. Over the past few years I've had experience of a few between family and friends, only thing that I ever heard of going was a crank angle sensor in my own one, luckily it was an easy fix. Over 200,000 miles on mine and still going strong.

Mycroft H

4 euro for a bottle of blue holts antiifreeze in your local motorfactor. Mix it 2:3 with water and top it up.