clag

I read the Honda recommendation of 10 years 120,000 miles on the coolant when I got the car and put it out of my mind. Kicking around the BITOG site has me wondering if that is wise. Most over there agree the Honda Type-2 is very good and well suited to our cars, yet shudder at the thought of following the suggested interval. It just rings of old-school thinking. It still takes a lot of convincing to get some people these days to stretch an oil change past 3,000 miles, despite the hard evidence that in all but extreme cases, the oil has a ton of life left in it. Are we still behind the curve when it comes to coolant and how much it may have improved? Can you even apply typical auto-fluid logic to coolant?

It is a component of a highly controlled, closed system. Brakes, sure, you can drive hard, boil the fluid. Trans, beat on it and maybe you get some particle contamination or shearing. Oil, short drives, WOT, lots of cold starts can shorten the life. Diff already works hard under normal use, killing it in short order is not the biggest challenge. Basically that leaves the hydraulic clutch fluid and coolant (and power-steering fluid on other cars) that are limited in what you can throw at them. What, "I drive my car hard, it gets really hot" ? It gets hot, fan runs, it gets cool, just like it was precisely designed to do. Is there any hard data available to show it is losing its ability to do work, as there is with oil? I realize some fluids, brake for example, can be inspected visually and you know they are crap. Oil has been known to get a burnt odor or develop moisture under the valve cover. Likewise, when a coolant looks and smells like crap, it probably is. If it looks like it just nearly came out of the jug, which mine does at 6 years and 20k miles, is there any reason to doubt it? You would never wait 10 years to change coolant . . . why? "that's crazy" and "I would never" really don't cut it.

I enjoy working on the car and maintaining it properly, just don't want to be wasteful for the sake of traditional thinking. Appreciate any thoughts.

s2k aok

RedY2KS2k

Please share any hard evidence you find with the rest of us.

Nickamsweet

Water is pretty much water, and with the additives put in it it fights buildup of crap etc. As long as the reservoir is correctly filled then you're sorted...

if you want you could swap it over at 60k just for peace of mind I suppose, but doubt no difference in operation will result.

drhess06259

I went 100k with mine and had very little build-up but i also added household water once when it over heated. so i am sure it was from that. I wouldn't do it anyless then 100k unless your bored and just want something to do as it wont hurt the car...

zeroptzero

the best way is to test it's acidity with a litmus type tester, if it reads good keep using it IMO. I think 10 years is stil the maxium period I would run it, I changed mine at 7 years though the mileage was far under the mileage spec.

On the other hand I wouldn't leave your sparkplugs in for the recommended spec, I think Honda went a bit overboard with that one. My plugs were totally done at 55,000 miles, the gaps were really high due to erosion of the center electrode. I shudder the thought of leaving the plugs in the engine for over 100,000 miles.