Those of you who have "flushed" your coolant system - is your coolant turning brown again?

I had mine flushed at the dealership only to have it turn brown again. Is the new coolant just mixing with the old brown coolant left in the block?

 

It sounds to me like the dealer is draining the coolant & adding more, not actually flushing the system. If your cooling system is very dirty & rusty it may take a lot of flushing to get it clean again. Dealer mechanics work flat rate & try to do every job as fast as they can. The faster they work the more money they make. I'd take the car back to them & ask them about it. Seems like they owe you a flush.

 

The problem with the MINI is that there's no real way to drain all the coolant. The engine block drain is located in a place that's nearly impossible to get at. The coolant is actually drained by disconnecting the lower radiator hose and draining the radiator/overflow tank. The coolant that's in the block will stay there. Unless the dealer has a machine that can push the block coolant up into the radiator (which would have to be done with a hot engine due to thermostat), there's no way to do a complete flush.

 

Well Kapps that explains why it didn't get flushed. There are machines that can do that. Best look for one of those to do a complete flush. What I've done in the past on my Miata was to drain & fill with water over & over until it comes out clean. A very laborious process, but one that does work given enough rinse cycles.

 

Are you talking about a classic Mini here or is it the new MINI?
The new MINIs were introduced in 2002 and we're at the beginning of 2006, I've never seen new cars having their coolant turning brown in only 4 years, Dex-cool in GM vehicles would have major issues usually caused by low level or from someone topping up the system with green coolant and I'm not a fan of dex-cool, I've had my share of problems.
I have 6 vehicles and none of them ever had a coolant change before the 4th or 5th year and I never seen brown coolant.

 

I have to agree with you Al. The only car that I've ever had with really brown coolant was a MG Midget that I'd bought from a nice lady. She had receipts for all work done. One thing was a coolant flush. That motor was so full of rust. As far as Dex-cool goes I've had a couple of cars with it & had no problems. As you've said the key is to only fill with the proper coolant. My thinking is most problems with it can be traced back to top offs with non compatible coolants. Every 4 or 5 years regardless of coolant type is good advice.

 

I've had my Mini flushed 3 times before the brown color disappeared.

 

I noticed you have an 03 and it was brown, how about your 02 BMW? did you have that problem too, I'm trying to figure out what would cause the MINI coolant to go brown? it should be under pressure and the coolant should protect against rust, what's our recommended coolant replacement interval?
usually 3-4 years is too long for an older car but for a new car it shouldn't happen that soon. I usually go about 4 years for my first coolant change then I do it every 2 years except when I use Evans, then I keep it for a very long time, I've got one going on 6 years with Evans and it's still like new, I'm thinking 10 years then I'll replace it.

 

I think the recommended interval is 3 years. I've heard of many issues with MINI's and brown or murky coolant. We've got one of the early '02's and haven't had any problems.

zrwon, what is Evans? I've flushed mine with Prestone all makes all models (silicate, phosphate, etc free). Almost a year later, my water pump gasket started leaking which is fairly common in early MINI's. The dealer took care of it under warranty and didn't care (or notice) the difference in fluids. I don't think my coolant change had any influence on the leak but I'm always on the lookout for good products. I'm thinking of using OEM (gasp) fluid on my next flush just to be safe.

 

Evans use no water, you can read more on this link:
http://www.evanscooling.com/main25.htm
It's not cheap but in my ZR1 it's worth every pennies, replacing the coolant in that car every 2 years was my worst mightmare and it makes more power by eliminating engine knocks avoiding timing retard, I used to have to buy higher octane VP fuel in order to get the same result now it runs a little cooler, no more knocks on pump gas, I love it, I did my wife's Z28 also, when you have more than one car, replacing coolant every 2 years is a waste of time, Evans is getting very popular with drag racers and Sprint cars, Sprint cars used to run 140-160 deg, thermostat to keep it cooler and make more power but with Evans, my buddy runs a 190 deg, thermostat and runs it at 225 deg. and make more power than he used to and the best part the reliability of his engine has increase drastically, he almost doubled the life of his engine, running cold makes power but is hard on engines, I used to push my car at the drag strip to keep the engine from getting to normal operating temp. but with Evans, I keep it running and it doesn't seem to make any difference, I'm getting consistant trap speed, I love it, I used to run 108 mph consistant with prestone and water and 110 mph if the engine wasn't to normal temp yet but with Evans I run 115-118 mph, I never got any runs under 115 since Evans, I even got to 120 mph a couple nights with cooler air and my Diacom showed no knocks or timing retard, I even did a run with the knock sensor disconnected and got the same result, I can go on and on about it but I'll let you read the site and hopefully you'll find answers to your questions, the worst part for me was to find a dealer in Canada but I finally found one.

 

About Dex-cool, I actually call it dex-crap, there are tons of lawsuits against GM for dex-cool, I can get you the links if you want, but here's a story with pictures:
http://eesvette.hyperboards.com/inde...ic&topic_id=20
And if you type lawsuit dex-cool on Google, you'll find pages after pages of horror stories about dex-cool, I have problems with my 97 Jimmy and my wife's 95 Z28 until I switched the Z28 to Evans, but my Jimmy still have that crap in it, I replace it every 2 years but I leave dex-cool because I keep thinking of selling it but just never get to it.

 

I only have 25K miles on the BMW and have never really paid attention to the coolant. I guess I should since it's 4 years old and my warranty runs out next week! Mini gave me the standard answer as the coolant comes like that out of the factory. Whatever. I haven't seen it brown for awhile. I also need to change the coolant here soon.

 

Wow - that's got promise! Evans doesn't provide numbers for comparison like Red Line Water Wetter, though. The pros of advancing timing and not having to service the coolant for a decade or so is tempting, but the cons are the high up-front cost and the issues you might encounter if your cooling system springs a leak (since Evans can't be mixed with water).

zrwon, are you planning on converting your MCSc over to Evans anytime in the near future?

 

I do not advance the timing but what I was saying is Knocks will retard timing, taking usefull power out of my engine and what Evans helped me with is avoiding knocks keeping my timing where it should be, the ZR1 is all electronic, the ECM takes care of the timing and 97 octane is ok but 104 was a lot better, now I get the same result with 97, that in itself pays for the coolant.
If you spring a leak you can still put water in there but once you fix the leak you'll have to replace the coolant in order to have the full benefit if Evans, it's like anything else, if you water down normal coolant, it will lose it's boiling and freezing point, but chances are you won't lose as much coolant either because you can run with no pressure, I replaced the caps on my wife's car and mine with a 5lbs instead of the 15lbs., so if you have a leak with this kind of pressure you really have a problem.
As for the MINI, it's a brand new car that hasn't been modified yet, I'm just starting to get famililar with it, so I have no plans yet of using Evans, once I start playing with it, I'll see if I think it might gain something by using Evans but I will do like the other 2, I'll compare data before Evans and after and as long as it doesn't hurt anything and I'm sure it won't, I'll at least gain peace of mind of not having to replace coolant every 2 years.
But I'm not there yet with that one.

 

What color should the coolant be? I'm guessing that dark colors are bad....

 

Dex-cool = BAD Both of my GM vehicles prior to our two MINIs ran it and both turned brown in 2-3 years. Excuse I was given was the heat down here in Texas - yeah right! One vehicle recovered with one flush, the other took three to keep it from coming back. Neither old style antifreeze nor water was ever introduced into either system. Sorry to hear about your troubles but would I would recommend is a double machine flush and fluid replacement. May cost a bit more, but seems to do the trick once it has made it to the muddy point.

 

My coolant turned brown the first year and was flushed/replaced by the dealer. (MINI of Towson)
Hasn't turned brown again over the last 2 years since then.
Maybe they did a more complete flush on mine.

 

What kind of coolant do they use in our MINI, my car has only 1600 miles and 1250 miles were done the first day, I never looked at it yet, what color is the original coolant and when it turns brown, did anyone ever tested it to see what the hell it's missing?

 

The OEM coolant is blue-green in color.

It's been said that the brown discoloration occurs because of the antifreeze
reacting with leftover silica from the cylinder head and block casting, and
that it doesn't affect the quality or life of the coolant, but MINI will flush
it anyway if it occurs on request.

The MINI coolant needs to be to be free of silica, phosphate, nitrate
and amines. One brand said to be compatible is zerex extreme life.
Prestone says their 5/150 extended life meets the criteria, but the low toxicity propylene glycol formulation does not.

here's the ingredients on the bmw antifreeze I got when my MINI had its
8500 mile oil service (and brown coolant flush&replace, and v37 flash).


part#82141467704

Ethylene Glycol
Diethylene Glycol
Sebacic Acid
Sodium Hydroxide
2-Ethylhexanoic Acid
Corrosion Inhibitors
Defoamers
Silicates
Dyes (blue)

(don't know why the dealer supplied coolant has silicates in it if it's supposed to be silica-free)

 

Cristo, this is the most valuable post on this Thread, my posts were not relevent to the MINI at all, this is a must keep, as for Evans, I will inquire about using it in the MINI if not compatible, I'll get it flushed by the dealer if it ever turns brown.

Thanks a million.

 

Keep us updated about what you find regarding the use of Evans in MINI applications, sir - I, for one, am keen to switch to Evans.

 

Here's the reply I got from Tom at Evans coolant:
I have not had any problems with people changing over new cars to our coolant, but if you want to know for sure, you may want to check with the dealer..............Tom

I guess he knows it won't be a problem but to protect your warranty, you might want to talk to your dealer, as for myself I always switched once the warranty was over but if I find the MINI can benefit from it, I might switch, their web site is pretty well done and you can find just about anything you want on there, but for myself I've seen the difference, I used to like Water wetter but this is much better, by keeping the engine temperature the same almost all the way through, Water Wetter is good to prevent nucleate boiling but when taking readings on my engine, especially the ZR1 with it's double overhead cams, the top end was always much hotter then where the coolant sensor was taking it's reading but with Evans, I found the top of the engine doesn't get as hot, we all know heat rises and since the supercharger is on top, the heat has no where to escape and that's why I would like to try it in the MINI, if there's a way to manage to keep the temperature of the engine more consistent it might help, I'll talk to my dealer but I think I would be better to hide it from them or they might want to void my warranty for no reason because I bought my car in the US and live in Canada and they don't like that too much.
Take the time to read the Technical info page on the Evans web site, there is so much to read but it's all good stuff.
Another problem I used to have was pump cavitation, I don't know if the MINI has that problem at higher than stock RPM but this will solve that problem, this might be worth looking into for those who've changed their settings, I've heard of MINIs reving up to 8000 rpm here, how is the water pump doing at 8k rpm? I bet it can't do it's job.

 

So hows the Evans Stuff? How did you clean your system to the degree that is advised? Temp reading?