1

I'm looking to flush and re-fill my cooling system, and I'm struggling to work out exactly what type of coolant I need to buy.

My maintenance book says I need 'Ethylene glycol-based antifreeze with a corrosion inhibitor', but when I search online at my local car parts shop, none of their coolants mention ethylene glycol. Instead, they seem to separate them by 'silicate' or 'OAT'. Does anyone know of either of these correspond to the type I need?

If it helps, I'm in England and my car is a Citroen Saxo 1.1 from 2002. I'm looking online at Halfords. They seem to have a lot of choice, but I have no idea which one corresponds to what I need!

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Ethylene glycol is your typical antifreeze. I see on the Halford site you can pull up the data sheet. It tells you in there if it has ethylene glycol. This tells me the "silicate" type is what you need.

Improve this answer
4
  • There are two main types, ethylene glycol based and "DEX-COOL. The former is usually fluorescent green and the latter is usually red or pink. They are NOT interchangeable. If it's DEX-COOL it will say so on the label. If it doesn't say, it's ethylene glycol-based.
    – jwh20
    Sep 6, 2020 at 10:56
  • @jwh20 - There are more types of antifreeze out there then just ethylene glycol and OAT (like Dex-cool) used in the automotive industry (ie: HOAT). Plus, you can mix ethylene glycol with OAT type antifreeze, however it reduces OAT longevity to that of the ethylene glycol.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Sep 6, 2020 at 13:11
  • Looks like you're right with the silicate being what I need - data sheet and back of bottle in the store say ethylene glycol.
    – george7378
    Sep 6, 2020 at 13:24
  • ...actually, both the silicate and OAT say the same thing on the bottle, and in the data sheets. Only difference seems to be that the OAT stuff lasts for 5 years and is 'newer technology' while the blue stuff lasts only 2 years.
    – george7378
    Sep 6, 2020 at 13:35

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .