Date:         Tue, 4 Jun 2002 23:29:22 -0500
Reply-To:     Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Organization: not likely
Subject:      More Car & Driver coolant stuff ... :)
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from the July 2002 issue of Car and Driver.

Patrick Bedard

Dr. Turcotte writes a few coolant presciptions.


First, do no harm.  Medical doctors live by that rule, at least
the good ones. And to my great reassurance, so does Dr. David
Turcotte, the good-humored antifreeze guru at Zerex.

I asked him to write a presciption for keeper cars, those wheeled
time capsules some of us have around for sunny days and reliving
the motoring moods of the past.  As cars go, anything older than
20 years is a geriatric case.  They were made for a world that no
longer exists.  That's what makes them so interesting.

It also presents problems.  In many instances, they've outlived
their factory-recommended care instructions.  You can't get those
old tires, oils, and fluids anymore.

As a guy living in Lipitor Lane, new doses for old vitals sounds
like an opportunity to me.  So I asked the doctor what he would
recommend for geriatric cooling systems.  Corrosion is my big
worry.  Minimal upkeep would brighten my weekends, too.

No one, it turns out, likes maintenance less than long-haul diesel
truckers.  Turcotte told me about Zerex Extended Life.  This red
juice is designed to go full-strength into truck radiators.  Do
nothing for the first 300,000 miles or three years.  Then throw in
another whack of inhibitors, a quart of Zerex Extended Life Extender,
and run another 300,000 miles, at which point the engine is
probably scheduled for a full tear-down.

This product is labeled "heavy duty", which is the supply chain's
term for diesel use.  HD motor oils are intended for diesels also.

"This would be absolutely the most bulletproof thing I could
suggest", he says.  "We're pushing it 500,000 miles in our fleet
work, and we still haven't found the point where it's no good."

But he was reluctant to recommend it for broad use in cars just
yet.  "In another five years, if things go as we expect, I can
probably tell you this is a better fluid."

For now, his choice for cars "as old as we're likely to find" is
Zerex G-05.  "I've got a 20-year history that says this really
works."

Zerex does most of its business with new-car manufacturers,
developing antifreeze for the industry's evolving needs and
supplying the assembly plants.  G-05 started off as an "exotic
European fluid."  VW changed to it early, followed by more
companies, including Mercedes for both gas and diesel engines.
Now it's becoming the everyday American factory fill for
Daimler-Chrysler and Ford, who serve it up as a "long life"
coolant good for five years/100,000 miles.

Turcotte says G-05 is less radical than Extended Life, and it's
backward and forward compatible, which means it can be mixed with
green conventional antifreeze or the latest inorganic types.
It's particularly well-suited to keeper cars, he thinks, because
of the way it combats the sort of corrosion that comes with being
a garage potato.

All the antifreezes I know have one side effect that's troubling
for a few of our special cars.  Ethylene glycol, which makes up
96 percent of what's in the bottle, has about half the heat-
transfer capability of plain water.  So when you mix antifreeze
and water in the recommended 50-50 proportions, you give up a
quarter of your system's cooling capacity.  No problem for new
cars; they're engineered with capacity to spare.  But I remember
British roadsters of the '50s and '60s that would boil on the
streets of New York in the summer, and street rods are notorious
for overheating.  You could cure the cooling problems of those
cars by circulating plain water through the system.

Most NASCAR racers do that.  But corrosion sets in amazingly fast.
Turcotte showed me a sample of coolant that had run 35 laps.  It
had flakes of red snow swirling through it ... rust.  I've seen
similar rapid rusting when I've used plain water to leak-check a
rebuilt engine.

Another approach:  Increase the proportion of water in your mix,
thereby trimming back both freeze and corrosion protection to
gain heat transfer.  Turcotte agrees that's a possibility, and
he says he tests with dilutions down to 25 and 16 percent.
"They survive", he says.  Still, his do-no-harm approach shies
from any antifreeze proportion below 40 percent.

Our conventional 50-50 mix is a one-size-fits-all solution to an
American reality:  ANY car might drive to ANY North American
location.  So they all go out the factory door with enough
ethylene glycol for freeze protection down to minus-34 degrees F.
Antifreeze makers blend in the inhibitor dose assuming that we
in the replacement market will dilute similarly.  Other
countries follow different conventions.  In the tropics, where
cooling is the top-most issue, the inhibitors are sometimes
blended up to 10:1 dilution.

Ideally, you could completely separate the freeze protection
from the corrosion protection.  Fact is, many special cars
don't go out in freezing weather, particularly those Sunbelt
residents that also fact the greatest threat of summer ...
overheating.

For them, Zerex Racing Super Coolant sounds ideal.  It was
developed for attack boats used by Navy Seals.  They operate
in tropcial waters too warm to give sufficient engine cooling
when you add in the inefficiency of ethylene glycol.  Super
Coolant contains inhibitors only ... special antifoaming
agents and protection during boiling ... Turcotte says, and
it's compatible with aluminum, iron, and other materials
common in older cars.

Imagine boosting the effectiveness of your cooling system
25 percent simply by changing the radiator fluid.

Now the bad news:  These aren't products waiting for you at
Wal-Mart.  Zerex Extended Life is serious trucker stuff sold
through appropriate channels.

Zerex G-05 is still trying to find retail shelf space.  It's
the usual aftermarket story in which a product that will
someday be as ordinary as pocket lint has to struggle for a
toehold because, so far, it has no track record.  Volume
retailers shun products that might turn into shelf scenery.

But demand is coming.  Daimler-Chrysler changed to G-05 in
2000, and Ford began converting in 2001.  Until now, you had
to buy the replacement over the dealer parts counter, at a
stiff markup ($12.50 per gallon at Ford).  As the volume of
needy cars on the road approaches a level that justifies a
mass-market replacement, Zerex is launching G-05 under its
own label.  Expect to pay five to seven dollars at Autozone
and Checker's.

For Zerex Racing Super Coolant, call 800-TEAMVAL.  Voices
on the other end will know about G-50, too.

I have no personal experience with any of these products.
But I do have a coupe that stays in the garage during July
and August for just one reason:  If it gets caught in
stop-and-go traffic, I know it'll cook.  Would I trade off
freeze protection to gain two months of summer fan?  In a
femtosecond.