Blue or Pink - K series question

[vulgalour]

Should my 414 have blue or pink coolant?  Up until now everyone had said pink and I've been planning to go ahead with that until someone whose judgement and knowledge I trust said that a black label on the expansion bottle means use blue and a yellow label means use pink.  My car has a black label.

 

What would you do, Rover fiddlers?

[RobT]

A Rover guru told me to use OAT long life red or whatever it's called.  He was doing me a HG replacement at the time on my old Rover Metro K-series.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Don't think either will cause any kittens to fall into any threshing machines but I would always use the pink stuff as it looks right in a K series expansion bottle.

[Richard]

Don't think either will cause any kittens to fall into any threshing machines but I would always use the pink stuff as it looks right in a K series expansion bottle.

That's pretty much the logic I used on the 850. I'm told that bad things happen if you mix them so give it a good flush either way.

[LC Torana]

Fun fact:

 

In Australia, your choice is between green or orange coolant.  Never heard of blue nor pink.

[Taff]

50/50 blend is what you need

[vulgalour]

Based on the Krujoe Tea Theory - mixing red and blue tea actually creates green not dissimilar to BL Tundra - I suspect I wouldn't end up with awesome purple coolant if I did that but rather a big fat mess.

[sierraman]

Don't mix it. It will turn to a jelly like substance as the two shouldn't be mixed. I'd say on balance blue, so long as its replaced frequently to avoid blocked rad etc.

[Bear]

The black label just means "don't put OAT in this, it's got the old stuff in".

 

Flush it out properly (you were putting in a new rad, yes, so that's half the battle done), put OAT in and put a yellow disc on the expansion tank.

[vulgalour]

Supposedly, OAT eats into copper parts.  The rad I removed appeared to be a copper core one so I wonder if that's why it was on blue.  Now I've got an aluminium one it shouldn't matter either way I guess.

[HillmanImp]

Shirley you would just use the same as what was in it when you got it? Or was there none in there? I have been away so am a little behind on curret affairs.

[MrBiscuits]

Mrs B's 1996 214 'Bubble' had the black plastic disc. We ran it with the blue stuff for 6 years with no probs. I must admit I would normally stick with what is already in there as I'm never sure you can get all of it out without removing and flushing the heater matrix, stat etc - though maybe thats just paranoia....

 

AFAIK the only benefit of the Pink (apart from the asthetic) is that its supposed to last 5 years. My experience with Rovers is that it will likely have started leaking from somewhere long before that

[cms206]

My gaffer has had 250k out a '96 K-series powered Tourer and his tips are...

 

- replace radiator every 50k.

- flush system every 10k.

- run with heaters on at all times.

- rinse and repeat.

 

His gets run on the same mix as we run the coaches on (50/50 blue) and so far his pair of 416s have had one HG between them, at 192k. The other is on 130k on it's original HG.

[HH-R]

Didn't Rover pretty much develop OAT for the K Series? I'd imagine they all used it as they were all aluminium. Lord Sward will know.

[Mr A Lawrence]

Pink OAT all the time.

[purplebargeken]

My F's all were in the 'pink'. Other Rovers may be available.

[Lacquer Peel]

I have some oats, will they be ok for a 1997 VAG TDI?

[Coprolalia]

I too feed my horsey horseless OATs.

[twosmoke300]

Plain water only , when it boils up the cuppa tastes rank with antifreeze in it

[Vince70]

Sorry to hijack your thread but does it really matter if you run a car on near neat coolant it's just the other week I drained the system on my friends motor and after putting a couple of litres of concentrated antifreeze in the motor I didn't have room for much water..

 

I guess it won't do a core plug in a hurry lol

[Parky]

I always thought blue was more neutral and less corrosive but needed changing every two years. OAT lasts longer but is far less tolerant of less than perfect conditions.

 

Ultimately the aim is to prevent the rad bursting apart when the snow comes so I'd be inclined to use blue unless the entire cooling system is sparkly clean, in which case OAT will last longer.

 

Mr B has a point, the pink does look nicer. Otherwise Comma do a green one, that might look nice too!

 

EDIT - use distilled water instead of tap water as it doesn't scale up. Although you can largely disregard this if you live in a soft water area. It's worth the extra fiver

[Sigmund Fraud]

My 214 of similar vintage used blue (silicate) coolant from the factory. I run it on the same stuff.

 

OAT is meant to be superior but it's a royal PITA to properly flush all the blue coolant out of the system before re-filling with red (OAT) coolant. I've tried swapping from one type to the other in the past, and ended up with disgusting, brown gloopy blobs in the expansion vase despite fairly obsessive flushing.

[LC Torana]

Sorry to hijack your thread but does it really matter if you run a car on near neat coolant it's just the other week I drained the system on my friends motor and after putting a couple of litres of concentrated antifreeze in the motor I didn't have room for much water.

 

Thank goodness, for your sake!

 

Remember the eleventh commandment:

 

Thou shalt not add water to glycol.  Ever.

 

You can add glycol to water, but never water to glycol.

 

This has been drummed into me so many times by the older generation of mechanics, that eventually after one too many OMGHGF events, I learned the lesson.

[explosive-cabbage]

It is interesting reading threads on Autoshite-

 

One reads 'the combination of lazy mechanics and tight fisted owners means garage work on cars never gets done properly before it falls into the hands of a loving Autoshiter'

 

The next thread reads 'This car came with blue coolant, therefore it must be presumed that blue coolant is the correct and only coolant to be used in this car'

 

The two are mutually exclusive. Mechanics will do whatever they can to save time and effort, and they won't care wether they use blueberry flavour or orange flavour.

 

Do what you like as long as you flush it properly!

[Taff]

my F has pink in it. I shall replace it with pink.

 

However, if it had arrived with blue, I would replace it with blue.

[purplebargeken]

That makes actual sense ^

 

You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Taff]

That makes actual sense ^

 

You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

 

I'm sober.

[vulgalour]

That's terrible.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Hope thats cleared it all up for you anyway Vulg. Next!

[Station]

Had both pink and green in MGF. Also had plain water and blue in previous k-series, it seemed pointless in the long run.