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Just got home from the local Meijers, shopped for groceries and picked up some 1/4 inch hose clamps for fuel lines. While in the automotive section I couldn't help but notice the stacks of Prestone coolant that is available in both full strength and pre-diluted (50% coolant, 50% water mix)..for some reason it always makes me laugh when I realize SOME people must be stupid enough to pay $5 for a half gallon of water when they choose the pre-diluted stuff that costs the same as regular coolant.

Let's see now...do the people who buy the 50/50 mix use the reasoning "it's better for my car, just like 2% milk is better for me than whole milk is..."

Yeah, right...me and my weird sense of humor....:laughing:

BKBrown said:

The only reason I can think of to use it would be if you know you have extremely hard water and it costs as much to buy distilled and then mix it yourself. Some people are too lazy or too ignorant to be able to mix anything 50 / 50 -- it is a pain to mix beforehand when you don't know exactly how much your radiator holds, but I keep a couple old empty jugs (from antifreeze) to mix them myself. Remembered the large print JD ! :biggrin:

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THANKS, BK !!! I do coolant drains, flushes, and refills on all our vehicles and my tractor every 5 years and by that I mean a REAL drain and flush...how many people do you know use a big shop vac and adapters to suck/blow all the old coolant and flushing water out of the radiators and blocks? Well, I do, it's surprising how much liquid remains in the blocks and radiators after just simple draining. And in colder regions like Michigan, a 50/50 coolant and water mix may be borderline against freezing temps so I have always used a 65% coolant/35% water mix here. I have seen 15 below zero here at times the last several winters.

JDgreen said:

Just got home from the local Meijers, shopped for groceries and picked up some 1/4 inch hose clamps for fuel lines. While in the automotive section I couldn't help but notice the stacks of Prestone coolant that is available in both full strength and pre-diluted (50% coolant, 50% water mix)..for some reason it always makes me laugh when I realize SOME people must be stupid enough to pay $5 for a half gallon of water when they choose the pre-diluted stuff that costs the same as regular coolant.

Let's see now...do the people who buy the 50/50 mix use the reasoning "it's better for my car, just like 2% milk is better for me than whole milk is..."

Yeah, right...me and my weird sense of humor....:laughing:

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I think people just don't know any better.:confused2: Its like when you read on here that the lawn mower turns over but doesn't start so they change the battery and starter or they turn the key and nothing happens so the change the spark plug and air filter. 50/50 anti freeze is for the people that know their coolant is low but don't know the ratio of what to put in.:frown:

bakerg said:

I think people just don't know any better.:confused2: Its like when you read on here that the lawn mower turns over but doesn't start so they change the battery and starter or they turn the key and nothing happens so the change the spark plug and air filter. 50/50 anti freeze is for the people that know their coolant is low but don't know the ratio of what to put in.:frown:

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If people are smart enough to open the hood of their vehicle and note the coolant is low, it's about as difficult to open that little booklet in the glove compartment as it is to open the hood in the first place. The problem is, the average motorist thinks that by adding coolant he is doing the proper thing, however, 95% of the time if you have to add coolant it means you have a leak someplace, and just by adding more coolant all the time you are simply compounding the problem.


You guys will not believe this one...one of my bosses where I used to work was a manager of the vehicle fleet of our division. He told me once about a guy who had signed out a car from the pool, and while away from town on his job, the oil pressure light came on, so the guy kept driving to a station. The light itself was the problem, the sending unit had shorted out, and the engine was full of oil and sounded just fine. However, the guy was sure the oil level was low, so he kept adding quart after quart of oil to the engine even though the dumbstick, oops DIPSTICK told him the level was full, then overfilled, then WAY OVERFILLED as the oil the guy kept adding finally began pumping out of the oil filler tube....the idiot really thought he could make the light go out simply by overfilling the engine with oil.

STOP LAUGHING...YES, this actually happened.

bakerg said:

... 50/50 anti freeze is for the people that know their coolant is low but don't know the ratio of what to put in.:frown:

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I may be off here.....but isn't the 50/50 sold right next to the straight up antifreeze? Wouldn't one figure out if it's 50/50 prediluted, that the ratio must be, oh I don't know......50/50?!?!?

...and isn't there a little chart on the back that tells you the ratio? People who are that unenlightened should just go to a garage....

twall said:

I may be off here.....but isn't the 50/50 sold right next to the straight up antifreeze? Wouldn't one figure out if it's 50/50 prediluted, that the ratio must be, oh I don't know......50/50?!?!?

...and isn't there a little chart on the back that tells you the ratio? People who are that unenlightened should just go to a garage....

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LITTLE CHART WITH FINE PRINT... NO DOUBT....:biggrin:

Those flippin' antifreeze makers are DISCRIMINATING against us old folks with bad eyes...

And then there is yellow and clear and pink and orange and dex cool and heavy duty and for diesel and God knows what other color or duty.
Ad there is stuff that mixes with this and that,but not with such and so.:confused2:
Oh they make it easy allright


What the frigg happened to using plain old green that went in every engine,mix it 50/50 or 60/40 and keep 1 jug on hand for top off.
It's hard to get nowadays but it's all i use.:thumbsup: