Well, not saying i...cough..did it or ...anything but

what would happen if tap water was used instead of distilled in the coolant mixture?

how catastrophic is it? and should it be immediately flushed and replaced?


thanks


im asking for my...friend

 

it would not hurt it, but is a good idea to give it an excellent flush down the road. i have gone to extremes of urinating to fill it (my upper rad hose exploded and did a temp fix with electrical tap and urine). as soon as you get home, then fix it ASAP because over time the calcium in the water will mess it up. plus adding to the fact that the boiling temp is alot lower

 

Not immediately catastrophic, but I would flush it out anyway when I got a chance.

I like using the premixed stuff that way I know the mix is correct and I don't have to worry about water quality.

Remember, when you flush that you are introducing tap water into the system anyway.

 

Get the **** outta here

 

i recomend buying honda premix it works great in mine

 

double post...delete this one please

 

can't you use distilled to flush it?

 

well, you can use coolant to flush?

eitherway, the problem with tap water is it contains a ton of minerals, which can corrode or otherwise damage the components, so best to flush it and use distilled when mixing, OR you could use some of those 100% coolant things like Evans Coolant or something

 

Sure, haven't you guys ever seen the movie "Red Dawn"?

 

A lot depends of course on how "hard" your water is. Some cities actually have VERY good water. There is a little town near me that naturally has water so good they simply bottle it and sell it as drinking water, it actually has less contaminates in parts per million than reverse osmosis filtered water, and the ph is comparable. So using some of THAT water isn't that big of a deal.
IF on the other hand you have water so hard it hurts when you shower with it, THAT stuff should never go NEAR a radiator!

Just go get about 5 gallons of distilled water. At what...$1.19 a gallon or so it is CHEAP to buy and flush your system with, and then use with new ethylene glycol for the proper mix.