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As you some of you may know, I had a coolant leak at the beginning of this year. I had the radiator replaced, at the Orange Park dealership, around Feb.
Just got a light, check your coolant level. The car does not get driven often (since now I only go to work maybe 2-3 times a week).
Opened the reservoir, stick a bounty rag because I noticed the coolant was not the usual blue....
As you some of you may know, I had a coolant leak at the beginning of this year. I had the radiator replaced, at the Orange Park dealership, around Feb.
Just got a light, check your coolant level. The car does not get driven often (since now I only go to work maybe 2-3 times a week).
Opened the reservoir, stick a bounty rag because I noticed the coolant was not the usual blue....
No color, and no smell?
Did they replace your OEM blue coolant with a universal H2.O formula ?
Former Yellow looks sticky and smells like coolant. There aren't too many applicable choices, right?
Last edited by CaliBenzDriver; 09-18-2021 at 07:03 PM.
I don't know about the smell, never really smell it...... but my 2014 E400 originally comes with that very light yellow-ish...near transparent coolant from MB Indonesia.
This if we take a paper towel like you did, will seems like no color.
A fairly simple test would be to siphon some off (NOT by using your mouth and a straw, please!) and putting a sample into a freezer CLEARLY MARKED AS POISONOUS.
It truly feels like water. And the fact that the car lost enough in 6 months that the sensor went off is telling me is water too. Would it harm anything to mix it with MB blue?
It truly feels like water. And the fact that the car lost enough in 6 months that the sensor went off is telling me is water too. Would it harm anything to mix it with MB blue?
As it seems your system was filled with water what I would do, if I was you, I would drain the whole system and fill it with 50/50 MB coolant solution. For just to top it off you can use MB blue, or you can go get Xerex for it.
indeed, the yellow stuff is G05, Mercedes used this in the 90s... the blue stuff is G48. the newest cars (april 2014+) have a violet coolant, I think this is G40, but its best to go by the Mercedes spec numbers, 325.0 for the blue, 325.5 for the violet.
(btw, those G numbers are BASF designations... VW coolants use different G numbers)
Last edited by Left Coast Geek; 09-19-2021 at 09:43 PM.
And maybe go talk to them as well to get the issue resolved?
and if they do, you can reflect that in the score. Hopefully, they resolve it for you; otherwise, you may need to look for "negative stars" for them. One will be too many.
Had an issue, with them already. During the same job, they refreshed the suspension on both sides, and charged me for a side that was done the year prior. Took 2 weeks to get my money back, after constant calling.
I used to swear up, and down for this dealer. Now they are on my no-no list.
You can measure your coolant mix concentration to know exactly what's in your car.
Apparently you have prior experience with double billing... time to find a trusted indy for your business.
My trust has been abused by four different dealers, so I know honest indies are definitely worth top consideration.
density tester refractometer
Your can spend 5$ at AutoZone or 20$ on Amazon.
Last edited by CaliBenzDriver; 09-21-2021 at 02:36 AM.
Can't say I've noted the smell, but I do agree on the slippery feel.
oh you definitely smell it when its hot, it smells like hot coolant. that kind of sweet chemical smell of glycols.
had a heater core leak on an old car, just the tiniest dribble so you could just smell coolant through the heater vents. wasn't even enough to get the subfloor wet, drove it that way for almsot 2 years before it finally failed totally and it was one of those cars that required tearing the whole interior out to get to it, it was like they started with that core and built the car around it. thankfully at that point it was my son's car, and HE got to do the dirty. IIRC, that was a 1991 Volvo 940SE wagon, which was a 4 cyl turbo 1 year only version of the 960.
While we discuss coolant.
I wonder if any of you are good with chemistry ........
Help me figure this out, just for knowledge sake.
I weigh my coolant + distilled water to get the accurate 50/50 mix, because gycol specific density is 1.11 gram per cm3. Where distilled water is 1.0
50 my 50/50 is by weight, not volume. I do not want to have too much concentarted coolant for my climate as the heat removal , water is better.
I then measure the TDS ( total dissolved solid ) for the heck of fun. Looking good and normal.
The distilled water and mineral water TDS value in PPM ( part per million or Mg/ML) is a known one, so I must assume that the coolant itself concentrated virgin is reading 767 or 787 PPM.
Here comes the funny part. When I mixed distilled water and coolant concentrate 50/50 by weight, the TDS shoots to above 2,000 PPM or at least 2,000PPM . My meter max out at 2,000 PPM you see.
This is virgin mix, not used one taken out from car's radiator.
This does not make sense..... it should read by right approx 55% of 767 or 787 PPM or approx 427 ish PPM.
So, chemistry guru, please enlightened me. I must be seeing some sort of chemical reaction. I know chemistry is sort of magic..... he he he.
My actual intention was, to read TDS value to detect dissolved metal into the coolant from the alloys used for engine and radiator and whatnot.
Like engine oil or tranny oil sent to the Lab Test, the more metal particles we find, it is a high alert/caution. ...so I thought.
While we discuss coolant.
I wonder if any of you are good with chemistry ........
Not me
Originally Posted by S-Prihadi
This does not make sense..... it should read by right approx 55% of 767 or 787 PPM or approx 427 ish PPM.
So, chemistry guru, please enlightened me. I must be seeing some sort of chemical reaction. I know chemistry is sort of magic..... he he he.
However, a 50/50 mixture of distilled water and glycol (or else) will not necessarily produce a mixture with a mass-weighted electrical conductivity, i.e. the electrical conductivity is not 50/50 necessarily. If I am not mistaken, the device you used to measure PPM, measures the electrical conductivity and it is calibrated (hopefully linearly) to convert to a TDS measurement.
But me seeing higher TDS of the coolant by being mixed with something of 2 PPM ( basically near zero ) the distillled water is what puzzled me a great deal.
If error and my meter shows say 100 to 900PPM, I can swallow that.
Let say we can mark the "parts". Say Yellow for water, and Blue for coolant, the mixture will definitely/physically has 2YPPM and 7x7 BPPM in the container if we were able to keep the liquid from mixing, correct?
Is the device able to differentiate between the Yellow and Blue parts? Will the baseline quantity being measured be meaningful?
Would a more controlled experiment help us isolate the issue? For example, mixing distilled water with tap water (hopefully the densities would be the same and the parts similar in nature). Will we get the same bizarre measurements?
Even further to guarantee it is the same solvent, we can take tap water and distill some of it, measure the TDS on both tap and home-distilled water and repeat the experiment. Then, we are counting the "parts" of the same nature on the same solvent.
I will do the dilution test to satisfy curious you ...
Usually I use TDS meter to test my swimming pool water as chlorine use will always leave "salt" behind and up to certain point
the chloride content will be high enough to make pool water not comfy at the tounge.
Also the TDS meter for my Reverse Osmosis production water test in Bali, to complement the built in EC meter it has.
09-18-2021, 05:20 PM
...so I thought.
