Proper Coolant Type

[Mikes91]

I am taking my truck into the shop next week for some maintenance, and the shop mechanic says that regular green coolant is appropriate for our trucks.

I believe that is correct, as long as the coolant is "low silicate" type. Am I right?

He will add the necessary SCAs after flushing and refilling the system.

Any reason I should order any other type of coolant (i.e., precharged?) What coolant is best for our IDI engines?

Thank you,
Mike

 

[yARIC008]

Sounds like you got it, green low silicate is what you want. I used to use fleet rite, but i think they might have changed the brand name. Don't know what it is now. Have a looksie on google and you can probably find some green low silicate.

 

[JPR]

I swapped to ELC after reading all the hype from CAT. It is expensive at $10 a gallon premixed. So $60-70 for the system plus flushing.

There are several anti-ELC folks at the 'other place' that will swear that oil cooler o-rings and the water pump will fail. Not sure if I have been lucky or what, but 11k miles and a year later, the truck still has it's original water pump and oil cooler.

I did have problems with hose leaks, but other ELC users have told me they did not have a problem. I finally bought a box of HD clamps at $1.70 each which solved the problem.