Topic: What did you do to your car today?

[me_2]

Nothing special except driving to/back from work and odometer is now 140,000 kms.

I drove only 4K kms (was 136K) since August when I brang her to home first time.

I'll put some gas one day, having 78 km gas range remaining 

[Firm]

I envy all those folks that live in southern Kentucky on down to the Gulf as they don't have to deal with all this tire and extra wheel bullsh*t.  Global warming is exactly what this country needs.

  Not just tire swaps, but the time effort that goes into 'seasonal changeover' type stuff here....storing seasonal vehicles (cars, boats, motorcycles, etc), putting patio furniture and yard stuff away, closing pools, closing cottages, etc. Then reverse it all in the spring. I hate it. 

[HeliDriver]

Just realized I only put 3,180 km on the "summer" tires this year. And it's not a Covid thing, as I only put 3,070 km on them the summer before. 

[EV Dan]

My local supermarkets with their internal pharmacies have PLENTY of distilled water. $1.49 for 4 litres

NEVER use distilled water in metal cooling system.  Your assuming impurities are the issue.

During the distillation process, water is vaporized into its gaseous phase, so all its impurities are left behind. These impurities include a number of minerals, including “calcium” and “magnesium,” the two components of water “hardness.” The water is then condensed back into its liquid phase, so the resulting liquid is pure water – in fact, some of the purest water on earth. But the problem is that when water is distilled, or “stripped,” of its minerals and impurities, the resulting solution is composed of chemically imbalanced “ions.” This leaves distilled water “ionically hungry,” so it will actually strip electrons from the metals in a cooling system as it attempts to chemically re-balance itself. As it chemically removes electrons from the metals of cooling system components, distilled water eventually does extreme damage that could lead to cooling system failure.

Sounds like something snake de-ionized water makers would write    Why have ions in quotation marks? Any way, I put a gallon of distilled water in front of my hymalian salt lamp and the ions are back 

My dad have used distilled water in everything from Ladas to Toyotas and Hyundais and never had a single cooling system issue.

[ArticSteve]

Idiotic response.  But I read it. 

[EV Dan]

Whatever man, the salt lamp was tongue in cheek obviously. Pat Goss says either type of water is fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyJ657cQh2Q

[Firm]

I've heard the distilled vs. de-ionized thing before, the argument for de-ionized makes sense, chemically speaking, but I am not sure there's any merit to the claim of it actually causing damage to the cooling system. It also doesn't account for ions added back to the solution as a result of the 50/50 mix with coolant.

Regardless...I use water from the garden hose for all my coolant mixing purposes  Never been an issue. I did a flush in the XKR last summer when I got it, researched the spec for the factory Jaguar coolant, turns out the Prestone 'GM Dexcool' compatible stuff on the shelf at CTC met the Jag spec...bought at couple jugs at $20/ea (minus my employee discount  ), mixed it up with the garden hose and called it good.

[draghon]

Snowed today so I broke down and put the winter tires on the civic. Also greased up the caliper sliders while i had the wheels off.

[Arthur Dent]

I don't use garden hose water here since we have "hard water" which can cause issues. Depends on the location.

[tpl]

Our Metro supermarket sells de-ionized water.  Zehrs sells distilled.   If I happen to be in that store I buy the deionized.  MrsTpl's  espresso machine likes either flavour.

[EV Dan]

Out of curiosity I looked at a couple of Hyundai manuals and both say either distilled or deionized water can be used.

[ChaosphereIX]

Put new wipers on. The Michelins lasted about a year, will see how long these Tricos last.

[Bubba]

Put new wipers on. The Michelins lasted about a year, will see how long these Tricos last.

I've used Trico Neoforms on a few of my vehicles and they've been very good.

[ArticSteve]

Whatever man, the salt lamp was tongue in cheek obviously. Pat Goss says either type of water is fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyJ657cQh2Q

I've used well water garden hose and the green stuff for decades on my former Detroit metal.  But those machines were simple.  Heater cores with AC where still wickedly difficult to replace but doable, but now Ford for example on many units combines the heater core, evaporator and blower fans in one pre assembled unit.  That's the point of me changing the fluid on such a low mileage vehicle that is to attempt to try and avoid any acidic issues and what not in the cooling system.

Same logic ppl use when changing motor oil before season storage.  Supposedly to avoid excess acids.  Does it matter    Does it matter materially?  Who knows, but each to his own.

As for the de ionized water why not?  I'm not spending $38 a gallon on coolant concentrate to cheap out on the water.  It's $4.00 per gallon  .  I didn't think the cost of the stuff was such an issue with ppl. 

[Gurgie]

Whatever man, the salt lamp was tongue in cheek obviously. Pat Goss says either type of water is fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyJ657cQh2Q

I've used well water garden hose and the green stuff for decades on my former Detroit metal.  But those machines were simple.  Heater cores with AC where still wickedly difficult to replace but doable, but now Ford for example on many units combines the heater core, evaporator and blower fans in one pre assembled unit.  That's the point of me changing the fluid on such a low mileage vehicle that is to attempt to try and avoid any acidic issues and what not in the cooling system.

Same logic ppl use when changing motor oil before season storage.  Supposedly to avoid excess acids.  Does it matter    Does it matter materially?  Who knows, but each to his own.

As for the de ionized water why not?  I'm not spending $38 a gallon on coolant concentrate to cheap out on the water.  It's $4.00 per gallon  .  I didn't think the cost of the stuff was such an issue with ppl. 

Why not just get the pre-mixed coolant? Like this? https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/prestone-all-vehicles-antifreeze-coolant-3-78-l-0293023p.html

[ChaosphereIX]

Yeah I just get the premixed stuff for my cars.  Worth spending the couple of extra bucks to avoid any hassle.

[Firm]

I usually use the premix stuff too, just for convenience, especially for top up or small jobs. If I am doing a big flush or something then I like to get the concentrate and mix it myself to save some $...Premix jug is half the product so you need to buy double the amount compared to concentrate.
As for the cost of de-ionize water, it's not a cost factor, rather a convenience thing...another thing to remember to buy, store, deal with extra jugs hanging around.

[ChaosphereIX]

and again as we have talked before...how often are you playing with your coolant that this actually is a thing to be concerned about?

My coolant gets touched every 2 for green, every 5 years for other colours. Just get premixed unless you are doing a flush every....lots of years.

If you are playing with coolant more than that...there is something wrong with your car? 

[Arthur Dent]

I change my cars more often than my coolant. 

[HeliDriver]

The Yukon gets done every five years at the dealer, so not my concern.

I do the GTI myself every 3-5 years and use the VW pink stuff from the dealer. I can’t even remember, but think it might come pre-mixed.

I have the de-ionized water for my dirt bike. Coolant comes in a one-liter jug, and I top it up with another liter or so of water. The jug and a half of de-ionized water I’ve got in the garage should last me a lifetime. 

Edit: Alright, so I just looked at my leftover jug of VW coolant in the garage. It doesn’t come pre-mixed, and the label says to flush the system with distilled water, then mix the coolant with more distilled water. So, yeah, probably not worth getting too hung up on the distilled vs. de-ionized thing.