Car Overheating...

[luunta]

Re: Car Overheating...

sweet deal!

[RONDAL]

Re: Car Overheating...

Yeah.....

Water boils when you heat it up. Didn't you know that?

RONDAL,

I think what DJ is trying to say, is that in a properly sealed system, your coolant is under such pressure that it will not boil whether you're running straight water or a water/coolant mix. When you relieve the pressure in the system by removing the rad cap, the water/coolant boils immediately, and you get dangerous steam coming out. While the system is pressurized, it would have to far exceed normal operating temperatures to boil over.

i know what dj meant. you dont need to write a short story about it. i was standing next to his car while it was doing this.

[RONDAL]

Re: Car Overheating...

i will also clarify, im not arguing about the cooling properties of water, im just saying its not the best solution.

another thing about pure 100% water is unlike G12 and other coolants that have the ability to plug up pinhole leaks when they dry up, water doesn't. so on cars like VAG ones that lets face it have coolant leaks every so often, coolant is a little handy. Water would simply gush out.

[luunta]

Re: Car Overheating...

[The_Jerbel]

Re: Car Overheating...

what i'm saying is in vegas, my 90% water and 10% coolant boiled and my car was towed to the dealershpi to get raped by a lambo mechanic that re-used my intake manifold gasket, didn't hook up my maf, and broke 3 vacum connectors. it was awesome. oh yah, i paid $600 for it

That sucks, man. Sometimes you take a real swift kick to the sweets, and there's nothing you can do about it.

[The_Jerbel]

Re: Car Overheating...

i know what dj meant. you dont need to write a short story about it. i was standing next to his car while it was doing this.

I'm sorry if I offended you. I certainly didn't mean to. I was just trying to offer an explanation for something that needed clarification.

And BTW, I completely agree with you about running the proper coolant/water mixture for a variety of reasons, but other than corrosion problems and leak detection issues, running straight water in the summer wouldn't be horrible either.

[nonick]

Re: Car Overheating...

Thanks for the thoughts guys, it just started flashing warning lights one day after driving my usual daily routes. Its of course still at the dealer who didn't even get to looking at it yet today so I'm stuck in a Ford Fusion for the time being (which is a surprisingly decent car).

[aliencurv]

Re: Car Overheating...

i didn't run that mixture because i wanted to be awesome and pick up chicks. it was because i was a lazy buttard. i had a small coolant leak and rather then buying g12, i kept adding water. so over a 6 month period, i eventually had almost all water. then in vegas, pop.

i love lamp

[RONDAL]

Re: Car Overheating...

lamp doesn't love you back

[J-hop]

Re: Car Overheating...

well other than the mentioned fact that g12 can sometimes plug leaks you likely didn't boil over due to your water/g12 ratio, as I stated if the cooling system is pressurized properly 100% water wouldn't boil until 121 degrees c which is 31 degrees over the proper operating temp of the vehicle (give or take 10-15 degrees for temp fluctuation), possibly the fact that your system was leaking and perhaps not reaching proper operating pressure is the reason you boiled over, not to mention 100% water as I already stated is a much better coolant in terms of heat capacity than 50/50, so you would have likely boiled over much sooner if you were running 50/50 mix because although 50/50 at 15psi wouldn't boil over for another 8 degrees, roughly speaking the amount of heat per volume the 50/50 could carry away from engine to be dissipated by the radiator is much less.

unless I am way off with my facts... in which case someone feel free to school me

[aliencurv]

Re: Car Overheating...

well other than the mentioned fact that g12 can sometimes plug leaks you likely didn't boil over due to your water/g12 ratio, as I stated if the cooling system is pressurized properly 100% water wouldn't boil until 121 degrees c which is 31 degrees over the proper operating temp of the vehicle (give or take 10-15 degrees for temp fluctuation), possibly the fact that your system was leaking and perhaps not reaching proper operating pressure is the reason you boiled over, not to mention 100% water as I already stated is a much better coolant in terms of heat capacity than 50/50, so you would have likely boiled over much sooner if you were running 50/50 mix because although 50/50 at 15psi wouldn't boil over for another 8 degrees, roughly speaking the amount of heat per volume the 50/50 could carry away from engine to be dissipated by the radiator is much less.

unless I am way off with my facts... in which case someone feel free to school me

i boiled because pure water is a better coolant, but will boil at a lower temperature then if there was coolant.

being a better coolant and boiling point are two different things. you confused them

[luunta]

Re: Car Overheating...

[J-hop]

Re: Car Overheating...

i boiled because pure water is a better coolant, but will boil at a lower temperature then if there was coolant.

being a better coolant and boiling point are two different things. you confused them

Edit to remove lengthiness:

that was exactly the point I was trying to make, if one fluid has a higher heat capacity than the other fluid it will take more heat to increase that fluid by one degree than to increase the other fluid by one degree. Therefore your 50/50 mix would reach its boiling point before the water would. Keep in mind, at 15psi water boils at 121 degrees and 50/50 at 129 only an 8 degree difference, but when you again look back to heat capacity although the boiling point is technically higher with the 50/50 mix, the rate at which you will reach this temperature is also much higher than if using water. So if the water could not handle the amount of heat being applied to it the same would apply for the 50/50 mixture except likely worse because its capacity for heat is much lower than that of waters.

the only issue I could see is if you were trying to run tap water which is just bad news, although I agree running water in the long term is a bad idea because no matter what you will always have ions floating around that could induce corrosion I do not agree that your car boiled over because you were running 100% water. Also your car should run around the 90 degree mark (give or take for temp fluctuations), given waters higher heat cap it will maintain this temperature better than your 50/50 mix will, if you are somehow getting the water above 121degrees C there is something wrong with your cooling system, not the coolant being used.

[RONDAL]

Re: Car Overheating...

you clowns asked for it...

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Car Overheating...

I will take that as my cue