Adding Coolant questions

[bjmitts]

Please forgive my newb-ness, I've searched this forum already but couldn't find the answer to the following questions regarding coolant:

1) What's the danger of not using distilled water when mixing with coolant?

2) When simply topping off my coolant level, do I need to go through the bleeding process?

[winfred]

i've never really seen the point of distilled water with all of the crap thats already in the cooling system, plus the fact that one of the main functions of antifreeze is corrosion protection, if it can't handle the slight amount of impurity's in the drinking water theres something seriously wrong

if you are topping up the system there should be no problem with bleeding, that only comes in when the system is drained and full of air

[bjmitts]

i've never really seen the point of distilled water with all of the crap thats already in the cooling system, plus the fact that one of the main functions of antifreeze is corrosion protection, if it can't handle the slight amount of impurity's in the drinking water theres something seriously wrong

if you are topping up the system there should be no problem with bleeding, that only comes in when the system is drained and full of air

cool, thanks winfred.

[whiskychaser]

Please forgive my newb-ness, I've searched this forum already but couldn't find the answer to the following questions regarding coolant:

1) What's the danger of not using distilled water when mixing with coolant?

2) When simply topping off my coolant level, do I need to go through the bleeding process?
If your kettle is full of chalky deposits thats what the inside of your rad wold look like over time. You could get demineralised water from a chemical distributors at a fraction of the cost of distrilled if you are at all concerned

[Ross]

A lot depends on your water source. My water is from a private well and requires $5k worth of treatment to be useful for washing and reverse osmosis to make it drinkable.
I spend two dollars for a couple jugs of distilled each time.

[uscharalph]

What's another dollar or two when it comes to your BMW. I always use distilled water and BMW blue coolant.

[bjmitts]

What's another dollar or two when it comes to your BMW. I always use distilled water and BMW blue coolant.

Well that's a good point. It is my baby, after all. ok ok...after wife and kids...THEN it's my baby ;)