Coolant system advice needed

[durhamfisher]

I've been loosing water from the system for a while now and been topping it up with plain water. Today, I checked the level and it was on minimum again so I topped it up with some antifreeze I had in my garage. Not thinking I added the coolant in 1/4L and then topped up well over the max mark. Dawned on me afterwards that the antifreeze I added was blue and not pink (Halfords type).

So....

1. Do I need to flush the system as it doesn't conform to G12 spec (but has BS6580:1992 on the bottle) I only added 1/4 of a litre?

2. If so how do I do it.

I did drive the car to the garage and back so I suspect its in the system now.

[cjb]

You'll need to flush the system & refill with G12. The blue stuff is likely to form a sludge in combination with the G12 that was there.

[dsr]

Have you any ideas where the missing coolant is going ?

I wrote a javascript utility that calculates how much coolant and water you need to maintain the correct strength solution at the correct level. All you need to know is how far the level is from the top of the tank which you can measure with a ruler. The page is at :-

How Much Antifreeze In My Skoda © Dave Restall

Regards,

D

[durhamfisher]

No but it started after a cambelt change. No water drips under the car though.

Is the car driveable until I get it done or will it make it worse?

[cheezemonkhai]

If it started after a cambelt change, then I'd be concerned that your water pump is leaking as it's driven by the cambelt. That's a very bad thing TM.

[dsr]

Agree with cheezmonkhai - if the leak is slow, you probably wouldn't see anything under the car. It gets hot under the bonnet and a slow drip would tend to evaporate as soon as it contacted with hot metal.

How long between topups ?

D

[durhamfisher]

Agree with cheezmonkhai - if the leak is slow, you probably wouldn't see anything under the car. It gets hot under the bonnet and a slow drip would tend to evaporate as soon as it contacted with hot metal.

How long between topups ?

D

Max to Min every 1000 miles or so. How does the cambelt change disturb the water pump? I know its driven by the belt, but do they have to remove it?

[cjb]

Max to Min every 1000 miles or so. How does the cambelt change disturb the water pump? I know its driven by the belt, but do they have to remove it?

Some older VAG engines used it to set the tension by turning it, but I don't know if that's still the case.

[Supurbia]

Max to Min every 1000 miles or so. How does the cambelt change disturb the water pump? I know its driven by the belt, but do they have to remove it?

Please don't say you had the belt changed and baulked at a £30 pump, get under her and look at the bottom pulley, if it's coming from the pump you will see some chalky residue behind the pulley wheel, always fit a new pump at belt times mate, it's false economy not to.