for you people who love distilled water in coolant!

12vriviera

12vriviera

That Guy with that car
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
6,846
I have heard this a long time ago and never had first hand experince with it until now.
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This is the slush from the bottom of the bucket i drained out of my car. 50/50 mix of prestone and distilled water. with a bottle of wix cool cavitaion/corrosion inhibitor. ran less than a year.
Distilled water is deionized, when put into a closed system it will pull ions from the metal surrounding it, causing corrosion. therefore the mess you see before you.
filtered drinking water is by far the best thing i have found to put in the car. hose water would have done better than this.
 
exactly what i put in it!!
Lots of people us distilled water only.
I got this for free so i gave it a chance. never again!!
After this weekend its getting a bottle of radiator cleaner and a good flushing
 
Please say this isn't in the motor you just put together too... Or are you still assembling it?
 
no, it never came apart. i just added a big(ish) turbo to it..
same engine that has been in the car.
 
Well crap, I've got distilled in mine. Something else to add to the to do list :doh:
 
You will know, check it regularly, if it turns rusty, flush clean and replace.
 
Huh, thanks for sharing sir. I have never used distilled water in a vehicle, just dip water out of our pond. It's mineral free so I figure it's better than hose water.

I wonder if hard water and soft water make a difference.
 
Besides the potential for calcium buildup (like a water heater), I wouldn't think so.
 
assuming it wasn't a brand new engine to begin with, that most likely was existing rust scale that was loosened by the deionized water. personally if it really is an issue then soft water is still the next best choice. any water from the tap or a pond has mineral that over time will settle out and attach to the metal surfaces. a friend of mine was involved with commercial water filtration for 30 years. when he installed a system at a wallpaper plant, to clean the dirt out of the boiler system their shutdowns due to steam system failures dropped right off the chart. the plant owner was fairly shocked at the difference. shocked enough to call other wallpaper plants in the area and tell them, you have to check this out. any debris in the system, or hard water is NOT your friend.
 
nitrogen said:
assuming it wasn't a brand new engine to begin with, that most likely was existing rust scale that was loosened by the deionized water. personally if it really is an issue then soft water is still the next best choice. any water from the tap or a pond has mineral that over time will settle out and attach to the metal surfaces. a friend of mine was involved with commercial water filtration for 30 years. when he installed a system at a wallpaper plant, to clean the dirt out of the boiler system their shutdowns due to steam system failures dropped right off the chart. the plant owner was fairly shocked at the difference. shocked enough to call other wallpaper plants in the area and tell them, you have to check this out. any debris in the system, or hard water is NOT your friend.
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RO water and use chemicals to control corrosion is the best bet. My experience with boilers is similar.
 
That sucks. I always go out of my way to use only distilled water, as I've always heard its best. Not sure why everyone says that.

I'be been thinking more and more about installing a coolant filter lately.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
I have only used distilled water, and after many engines and many hundreds of thousands of miles I have never seen even a hit of what you are seeing, I would say that the distilled water is not the culprit.

It sounds to me like the "synthetic causes leaks" myth, when actually the bad seal was there just plugged with sludge and the synthetic cleaned the sludge and exposed the existing leaky seal.

The service manual also specifies distilled water.

"This coolant offers the best engine cooling without corrosion when mixed with 50% ethylene-glycol and 50% distilled water to
obtain a freeze point of -37°C (-35°F)."
 
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Zstroken, what is RO water?

For everyones knowledge, I ran the system with regular water and only wixcool for 3 months, flushed with super radiator cleaner afterwards, drained and installed this, there was very little sludge or deposits in system as the previous owner took great care in his vehicles,
I have never before used distilled water and never had this problem, even in my previous dodge, same coolant and filtered water.
I do know what the bottles say, and I do know what the manuals say,
I am also a corrosion tech in the oilfield, so I know what we go by as sop here, and everything in my mind points to distilled water.
Of course everybody has their opinion,i wanted to share my experience is all.
 
24vriviera said:
Zstroken, what is RO water?

For everyones knowledge, I ran the system with regular water and only wixcool for 3 months, flushed with super radiator cleaner afterwards, drained and installed this, there was very little sludge or deposits in system as the previous owner took great care in his vehicles,
I have never before used distilled water and never had this problem, even in my previous dodge, same coolant and filtered water.
I do know what the bottles say, and I do know what the manuals say,
I am also a corrosion tech in the oilfield, so I know what we go by as sop here, and everything in my mind points to distilled water.
Of course everybody has their opinion,i wanted to share my experience is all.
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Reverse Osmosis water.
Curious if the super radiator cleaner maybe had something to do with what you see.
 
RO is reverse osmosis.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis"]Reverse osmosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
I have used the cleaner on everything I own with no ill effects before or after,
Though now I have a ton of loose scale and deposits, way worse than I have seen in something of mine, I am about to do the flush again...
I don't have reverse osmosis machine but I do fill gallons of filtered tap water to put in radiator...
It's as if the coolant had no anti corrosion chemicals in it at all..
like it set in the rain for over a year.
 
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