I drive a scooter with a watercooled engine. most mechanics around here don't really know a lot about watercooled engines and the guy who sold it to me told me that I didn't need to put too much coolant in the rad. He says that if the ratio is too much, the coolant will react with some of the metals and will actually eat up parts of the radiator from the inside out.
I've done a little work on cars, but don't have any training in the area. However, this sounds wrong to my ears.
Is this completely silly or is it for real?
He says 3 parts water to one part coolant (Taiwan has sub-tropical weather with a long, hot summer which we are about to come out of in a month or so).
In Canada, we used to use 50/50 (victoria - which doesn't get very cold winters).
I'm guessing that the formulation is probably a bit different too since - while it smells about the same to my nose, there's no real need for any significant anti-freeze characteristic. It gets near freezing at some altitudes, but usually stays on the happy side of 6 degrees even at the coldest time of the year.
I'm more thinking from the standpoint of keeping the engine running cool, preventing rust and gunk from building up in the cooling system etc...
Thanks.
PS. The scoot is a 2004 180cc SYM RV. We flushed the coolant today and it was rust colored water tinged with a tiny bit of green. My guess is that this was its first flush.
My guess is that a 50/50 or slightly higher mix would stave off the rusting for a bit longer.
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