Which brand of Antifreeze do you recommend for Honda Civic

[sirwilliam]

Any recommendations for Antifreeze coolant brands for my 93 Civic LX with 200k miles. I live in Phoenix and getting my car ready for super hot summer. I want to keep my car running cool while using the air conditioner.

Nothing is broken simply avoiding repairs in the future.

Topic

[college man]

50/50 mix green antifreeze will work. I use prestone. If you do mix your own use steam distilled water.
otherwise you can buy the premixed stuff. pour and go. little more expensive but no mixing requiredC8-)

[sirwilliam]

I come here to confirm my findings, how about cleaning the system up or should I simply drain and fill?
I do want to put some new stuff, keep my engine cool as much as I can.

I know there is also an engine block drain plug, not sure where in this 93 Civic LX.

I’m not sure how much coolant breaks down after time, similar to car oil.
Lets say when draining my radiator I see that the fluid is clean, should I still go ahead and try to flush and clean the system or that’s a good indicator there is no rust or junk in the system?

[college man]

I suggest a flush and fill. don’t pull any engine plugs. Open the drain cock on the bottom of radiator. drain
coolant. close drain. disconnect top rad hose from rad. stick garden hose in to rad fill neck. kink hose to control flow.
start car.heat selector set to hot.flow water into rad. flush until water comes clear out of top rad hose.during the flush
snap the throttle a couple of times. stop car and water flow.open rad drain to drain out remaining water. close drain.
reinstall top rad hose. refill with coolant. follow bleed video procedure. (depending on age 4years 50,000 from last
service. replace the t-stat and cap) This should keep your cooling system tip top. also inspect your hoses and replace as necessary.C8-)

[sirwilliam]

Sound great, thanks again

[JDM_Hatch99]

The blue OEM “type 2” antifreeze from honda. But dont get it from a dealer because they are crazy, ripoff expensive. I get mine online.

[cb7ftw]

A few people in my area are starting to run straight distilled water in the summer. If you keep your car in a garage at night, and it can’t freeze, should be good to go. Only reason why I have not done it, is I want to do more research to see how hard that is on the water pump, and radiator.

[hbvx]

You definitely don’t want to use only water. It can’t protect the metal and will lead to scoring over time, if you are lucky enough to not have it boil off. Not worth the risk…

[EricTheCarGuy]

It is true nothing moves heat like good old water but as mentioned you also need to lubricate the internals of the system as well as prevent corrosion therefore coolant/water mix is the way to go.

I don’t recommend flushing as it often causes more problems than it fixes so if the system isn’t full of gunk don’t worry about it a drain and refill should be fine. Personally I would only drain and refill the radiator, if you do this about every 30K there’s no need to do more, the new will mix with the old just fine and if you do it regularly you shouldn’t have to worry about it.

The most important thing however is that you bleed the system after doing the work, if not all kinds of problems will come your way. Don’t worry if you don’t have a bleeder valve as they are just there to help fill the system faster but do everything else in this video the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpXgAJ1 … ure=relmfu

[sirwilliam]

I did a normal drain and refill with one gallon of Prestone Antifreeze / Coolant rediluted 50 / 50. I took the old fluid to a shop for recycling.
I need to drive the reset ECU a bit more to see if my idle can go up a bit. I did clean the Idle control valve and checked for vacuum leaks.
So far so good.

I replaced the ECU because it wasn’t shutting off the a/c compressor clutch.
Maybe I get a low idle because of the a/c load. I’ll have AutoZone check the alternator to see how much power I’m getting. Battery should be good.

[Vlad2]

If its idle, as Eric said above, and I learned this past week, get every last air bubble out of that system. Your idle issue is probably due to this. I had what I would consider a little bit of air in the system and it caused all kinds of issues. I spent 30 min. bleeding the system and now it runs like a dream.

Seems there are a lot of posts recently about air in the cooling system causing issues, seems really common.

[sirwilliam]

I believe I got most if it out, maybe I need to open bleeder valve a bunch of times and repeat and repeat. I was surprise how clean my idle air control valve was. Maybe my idle valve was clean do to the fact that we run 87 octane gasoline over here in Arizona, I’m not sure. Ok sorry of topic.

I wish I can vacuum out the air similar to brakes.

[hbvx]

^My idle issues in my 92 VX hatch seem to be worse with the A/C running or when a cooling fan turns on, etc.

I also have a couple bad engine mounts, so it makes vibrations worse. Even the gear selector/shifter has a vibration when the idle gets low. So annoying. I also may have a small leak at the water pump gasket, need to inspect that. I will check this when I adjust the valves. Otherwise, I may have slightly low coolant condition going on.

Also running Prestone 50/50 pre-mix though I’d prefer to get away from anything with 2-eha. I found a local dealer of ‘Beck / Arnley’ brand coolant that is the the older green formulation but without the ‘dex cool’ like additives. $23 for concentrated, so I can blend my own mix. Do my own drain/rinse and swap away from prestone eventually. I’ve wondered if this could be prematurely destroying the water pump seal on my car. It ‘is’ possible, from a chemical standpoint.

Use this to bleed your cooling system at the radiator cap, don’t “bleed” it via the initial fill level ‘valve’. I purchased mine from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Lisle-24610-Spill … 743&sr=8-1

[dreamer2355]

You dont need a bleeder valve to bleed a cooling system. Just follow Eric’s video link and you should be fine.

[sirwilliam]

So lets say I keep the rpm around 2500, how long before I can expect the fan to kick in? I also have the header knob on the heat position and fans tuned off.

[hbvx]

^Until it gets to operating temp, wait for about 10-15 minutes idling while doing nothing after initial start up with the radiator cap remove and your ‘spill free’ setup in place. Start applying throttle at that point, after the initial ‘warm up’ period. Give it 10-15 more minutes of doing that, or until no air bubbles/you can’t add any more coolant for topping off.

However, I’m not sure if the overflow tank is supposed to be filled before or after the radiator ‘air purge’. In the video eric posted, it’s shown being done after the bleed.

[Author]

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