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Added 0.5 Liter of drinking water to coolant ... now what?
. I had low coolant level away from home. I added 1/2 liter of drinking watr (Poland Spring) Just enough to have the low coolant indicator off.
When I got home I added G12+ coolant to the max.
Need your opinion if the system will survive with 1/2 Liter of Poland Spring in it or I need to flush the coolant and replace with the new one.
Personally I do not like replacing coolant with the new one since I feel that new coolant eats some metal while it cures.
To put your concern into perspective: I use tap water and atifreeze 50-50 mix for past 20 years in every car I had.
To tell you the funny story, you should use it as well.
That’s how concern you shoul be.
And if you have any doubts and want to f your engine “if” somehow it boils up, know that tap water boils sooner (especially on higher altitudes) providing you much earlier warning system then destilled water mix, because destilled water always boils at 100 C, no matter the altitude.
Add here an increesed pressure in system (which increese boiling point), plus the fact that G12 raise boilng point for about 7 C as well, “if” it boils up, engine heads will be warped 100%.
To put you in another perspective, my 2.0 AQY 85KW engine in Octavia has boild up once upon a time during AC desinfection (at idle) due to the know fan fuse issue located in a box above the battery.
Car had a tap water in it. I just cooled the engine and refill the system. That was it! If it had a destilled water it would be a different story, since the engine boiling temperature would be much higher, and my head would warped for sure.
If minerals in cooling system is your major concern (over possible engine overheating issues), then continue with destilled.
Tap is like a “fuse in electric circuite”, simple as that..
I believe you have posted some incorrect information. Distilled water will in fact boil at a lower temperature as altitude increases. It would take an lot of impurities in tap water to raise the boiling point more than a fraction of a degree.
That said it would be silly to worry about that half liter of bottled water that was used. Absolutely no problem. What I would be concerned about is how the water was lost to begin with.
I just researched this and it seems you should be fine indeed if you have the 3.2 FSI. The 3.0 TSFI is a different story. This is from the CREC variant manual however. See screenshots below.
wow. thank you so much for your response. I guess the Poland Spring goes under "drinking water" category. Besides I only replaces like 5% of coolant. So it should be diluted enough not to cause much harm.
For comparison, I was pretty paranoid with my first A6 (2.8 L 1996). I replaced coolant several times in the span of 10 year. I ended up with pinhole in radiator, cracked heater core, cracked heating valve, leaking coolant tank and some other stuff with the cooling system. Also had leaking cooling pump, but that is probably because the timing belt issues.
I blame all of it on the changing coolant. For my 2006 A6 I had for 230K miles. Did not touch coolant and it drives like a chump.
Industry general recommendation is mix distilled water with coolant. Drinking water from around the world can have differing minerals and chemicals that can cause deposits and corrosion. The PH can drift with high mileage coolant which is why I replace every 120,000KM or so.
wow. thank you so much for your response. I guess the Poland Spring goes under "drinking water" category. Besides I only replaces like 5% of coolant. So it should be diluted enough not to cause much harm.
For comparison, I was pretty paranoid with my first A6 (2.8 L 1996). I replaced coolant several times in the span of 10 year. I ended up with pinhole in radiator, cracked heater core, cracked heating valve, leaking coolant tank and some other stuff with the cooling system. Also had leaking cooling pump, but that is probably because the timing belt issues.
I blame all of it on the changing coolant. For my 2006 A6 I had for 230K miles. Did not touch coolant and it drives like a chump.
Won't cause ANY harm. And hopefully your car drove like a champ rather than a chump
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Added 0.5 Liter of drinking water to coolant ... now what?
