Coolant in the Mk2

[Vista]

Hey all,

Suffering a little indecision here... I need to top up my coolant as it's getting a little low. But the thing is, I don't know what has been used before and I'm reluctant to just pick up any old off-the-shelf product. Last service was by Volkspower and I'm guessing they'd have covered that off. Would they have used G11?

Any advice would be great!

Cheers!

[walshydub]

I had the same problem with mine so i just flushed the system and replaced the coolant with the best i could find. It's easy enough to do, 1 Hour job max.
I ended up using a Castrol coolant, can't remember the specifics. Just make sure you replace it with the same colour fluid.

[Vista]

Cheers Walshy, the local servo has Castrol and I was going to chuck that in. I'll look up how to flush the system and try that if it's not too complicated.

[walshydub]

Its easy enough.
1. Take the cap off the filler tank, then disconnect the bottom radiator hose to drain it.
2. Flush it through with some water - Re-attach the rad hose, fill it with water and run the car for a minute or two to flush the system then drain the water out.
3. Fill it back up with fresh, clean coolant. Run the engine for a few minutes with the filler cap off to let any air out of the system and top it up if needed.

Well that's how i do it, somebody else may have some more tips.
Then at least you will know what kind of coolant is in there so you can just top it up in the future. Good luck

[NeuSpeedGTI]

A good idea with step 3...
Once you have filled up the radiator and coolant tank again, run the engine with the cap off until the cooling fan comes on.
- Whilst the engine is warming up, the coolant will boil/bubble and overflow from the coolant tank, once it reaches the right temp the rad fan will come on and the coolant will drop right down into the tank and the overflow will stop. This way you can be sure there are no air bubbles anywhere in the cooling lines. Once the engine is off you can top up your coolant again to the right level shown on the tank.

Hope that makes sense!! :p

[Vista]

Thanks a million guys, I'm going to try and get stuck in this evening. We'll see how that pans out!