Coolant Questions

[bradsjazz]

Is there really any reason not to use a normal coolant vs Porsche coolant?

At stop light the needle sits from the left of the 0 of 180 to the right side of the 0. Any need to be concerned? Thanks, as allways.... Brad.

[Loren]

There are already quite a number of discussions and comments here on this. Please use the search feature and search for "Porsche coolant" (without the quotes).

[steve_wilwerding]

Short answers:

You pretty much need to use Porsche coolant, as that is what the cooling system is designed to use.

Usually the temp gaude needle is in the middle of the 0 in 180. As long as yours isn't much beyond that, I wouldn't worry.

[Tool Pants]

Here is some info I got in 2002. On a hot day my needle is about where yours is.

Elf makes the coolant sold by the Porsche dealer. In the one liter bottles for a lot of money. Elf is a large petroleum/chemical company in Europe. I have been trying for find the equivalent sold at a parts place, such as Kragens AutoZone, Pep Boys. It has to be a standard long life coolant - nothing special.

In 1998 Elf and Texaco entered into a joint venture for the sale of coolant in Europe - under the name Arteco. Then Chevron and Texaco merged. So I contact Chevron/Texaco and they contact Europe. This is the email I received.

Subject:

RE: Coolant for Porsche Boxster

Date:

Mon, 21 Oct 2002 06:07:47 -0700

From:

"Dusing, William N"

To:

"'Jeff Lopez'"

Jeff,

The ChevronTexaco products in the US that meet the performance requirements of Porsche, but not yet approved are as follows:

Havoline® DEX-COOL® Extended Life Anti-Freeze/Coolant

Chevron DEX-COOL® Extended Life Antifreeze/Coolant

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Bill

[thelion]

When I was at Sebring on Jan 3rd, a guy with a Boxster had a boil over, he mixed another coolant with Porsche coolant. I didn't think it would make much of a difference and neither did he. I thought that Porsche coolant would be the same as any other just with a Porsche label on it, but apparently there are slight differences.

What Bill said will work, both Havoline and Chevron make good stuff, and they say it meets the performance requirements, it should work fine.

As far as the guy at Sebring that had the boil over, he flushed and replaced all the coolant with the Porsche stuff.

I think if you flush all the coolant out and replace it with the Havoline or Chevron stuff that Bill recommends you'll be fine, but it's probably not a good idea to mix any two coolant brands together, although for street only driving it probably doesn't matter.

Tom

[umn]

...

it's probably not a good idea to mix any two coolant brands together, although for street only driving it probably doesn't matter.

...

The issue with mixing different types of coolants is the compatibility of the corrosion inhibitors, which does matters for street driving.

Cheers

Uwe