So what is this Pentofrost stuff the o'riellys employee tried selling me on today?
He had a horrid look on his face when I was buying normal pre mixed prestone green coolant for a Land Rover.
He said only Pentofrost should be used in them.

I have never heard of it. Looks expensive. Is that all it is? Made in Germany expensive.

 

see Pentosin

Note that per their own specs they have a different formula for Range Rover vs Disco. Since they are same block and in some cases almost exact same radiator this could be a little marketting slip.

As for advice from parts guys on the other side of the counter, it varys quite a bit, from great to motivated by sales contest.

Antifreeze is becoming this "so exotic and expensive" that you can only afford to change it once in the life of the vehicle, so it is ignored like so many guys do with their tranny fluid. Vehicles would last a lot longer if tranny fluid and coolant was changed every 3 years.

As for long life coolant, it is a chemical cocktail. It is in a sealed (almost) space. Add contamination of any kind and you have changed what the factory formulated. It is at work 24/7, the reactions speed up when it is hot (like many chemical reactions), but it is still working when it is -10F. Add tap water, or the worst, well water with high lime content, and you get even more scale build up. Start with something like Dexcool, and you get sludge to go with the scale. Add some radiator stopz leakz, and you can coat the inside of everything with a fine layer of some other chemical, which reduces the heat transfer even more. Like wearing a sweater in the summer.

That's why a 15 year old radiator from the junkyard may be half full of gunk, even though vehicle hasn't been cranked in years.

Rant over. Use plain old green 50:50 and change it on a decent schedule that is not based on miles driven.

 

I have never heard of it.
On top of that 99% of those parts counter guys do not know their *** from a hole in the ground.

 

Lucky some of the 1 percenters are on here....

 

It is the Audi/VW spec G12 product made by Pentosin. They also offer a G11 and G12+ product. I use their G12+ product in my Audi, but not sure I want to use it in my Rover.

 

I am proud to be a 1 percenter.

I work at O'Reillys and have been in the parts business for 20 years, I run the universal Prestone (bought at O'Reillys) in mine. The counter guy you dealt with was confused. I have sold the Pentofrost coolant, but only to customers with various German vehicles.

 

Agreed, I once had some ******* from Pep-boys give me an rubber air hose instead of a diesel grade fuel hose (which I specifically asked for mind you). 3 day's later I had diesel pissing all over the engine.

 

Yeah . I didn't listen to him . I was just curious as to what it was as I never heard of it .
I don't see how normal green prestone wouldn't be ok to him . Although he did go off on racing Nissans and drifting cars.