Our 03' w/just over 49k is about to depart on it's longest trip since ownership... 12 hour journey. Paranoia self destroy ya... or so the song goes. Finger's crossed that there are no issues w/the oil pump. Anyhow... have never changed the anti-freeze and is probably long over due. What is the concensus w/type and what can I expect to pay?

Thanks!

 

Concenous is you can use any type you wish with the ecception of the factory Dexcool.
Any of the major brand long life coolants will work you just have to make sure all of the OEM stuff is flushed out first, it will not combine with the new coolant.

 

flush, flush,flush,flush,flush, that system out man... replace the thermostat and the expansion tank cap use peak or anything other than DEXCOOL or compatible with DEXCOOL.
Do a search on how to flush coolant system should not take you more than an few hours to take care of it all.. she will be soooo happy you did.

 

Where is a good place to get an expansion tank cap and t-stat fast? I am leaving in the beginning of July. Thanks!

 

Atlantic British

 

Worried about driving a Land Rover 12 hours? See what I mean?

I flushed mine with water and ran a flush product. These are basically a sodium citrate solution that removes some rust and scale. The milder ones take several hours driving to work. Their usefulness kind of depends on materials of the cooling system and it's condition.

Drain your system at the lowest points. Usually this is the lower radiator hose, and you can also drain the water jackets in the engine block with the plugs on each side. If you used a flush solution, you can flush it again with water only.

When you're ready to fill, have it fully drained and then fill with a solution of coolant/antifreeze and distilled water that you pre-mix to the ratio you want (details on the label). Basically you have to remove the surge tank and raise it up.

I filled with Pestone DEXCOOL. DEXCOOL is great stuff. It lasts at least twice as long as the non OAT coolants. There is nothing wrong with mixing it with green (non-OAT) coolants but a mixed solution will only have the life span of the inferior coolant. There is no reason to believe it will do any damage.

There is no reason to believe DEXCOOL causes any damage. OAT coolants, and DEXCOOL in particular have run successfully for hundreds of millions of miles. They work. Period. It's true that there was some class-action lawsuits for particular engines, but that suggests a problem with those engines, not the coolant -- and the research done shows it wasn't an incompatibility with the coolant, but a new design pressure cap that failed open and caused low coolant levels.

Honda uses an OAT coolant. Do they have any issues? Sorry. The only difference with Dexcool is 2-EHA which Honda doesn't have. 2-EHA is an effective corrosion inhibitor but is suspected by some of causing intake manifold gasket leaks. Does it? I can't say for sure it doesn't, but intake manifold gasket leaks are not a common problem on Land Rovers that use Dexcool. Coolant is not a cause of head gasket leaks common to Land Rovers. Those gaskets are metal.

I heard that Disco II's can be tricky to bleed the air out of the cooling system after filling. There's a procedure in various threads and RAVE.

 

That's nice that you have an opinion, but those of us who actually test the pH in our coolants have found OAT coolants to go acidic well before their promised lifespan in a system with the slightest bit of air in it (read: not in laboratory conditions). Some motors and gaskets deal with acidity better than others. The fiber gaskets typically in use on Rover V8s do not.

 

That is priceless.... If my stupidly long signature wasn't already so busy with other crap I'd add it..... I may just keep that somewhere and use it when necessary.

thanks for the laugh.

 

Which fiber gaskets on Rovers are seeing failures due to OAT coolants? Which Rover fiber gaskets are seeing premature failures for any reason at all?

 

All of them.