What with there being a bit of a chill in the air of late, my thoughts have turned to putting some anti freeze in the old Golf. Not to cluded up on this sort of thing, how much do you put in and do you need to drain the whole system first?.
you should be running anti freeze all year round as it has rust inhibitors in it, can't remember exactly what the ratio is but think its roughly 40% antifreeze. someone will know for definate. the haynes/owners manual probably says it somewhere if there is none in then i would drain and flush the system out, and refil accordingly.
get an anti freeze tester from halfords- is only 1.99. Also just want to let you know that i had a seat cordoba with an ABU VW engine in- it had 104'000 miles and died due to having no anti freeze for a long time, i only had it for 1 month but it was too late, i took it in for a head gasket and my VW mechanic said he had never seen something so rotten from the inside out, it couldnt be saved and subsequently went on ebay for parts. Thank god it wernt my MK1 is all i can say
Dont bother with the tester, apparently theyre crap! Someone on here bought one and apparently water from the tap has enough antifreeze in it
My dad has an atifreeze tester, a tube with 3 balls in and it works well. Dont know where he got it from but it deffinatly doesn't think tap water has enough anti freeze in. Just get some consentrated anti freeze and look at the ratio it recommends on the bottle. Its can sometimes be 50:50. On my MK2 i drained and then filled the whole header tank with anti freeze. The tester said this was enough (yes i did let the anit freeze mix first). If you put in a whole bottle then that would diffinatly be enough
The ratios are different depending on which one you buy, read the bottle for the directions. The Halfords testers are pretty useless, I wouldn't trust them.
50/50 if its a Mk2 disconnect small return pipe from header tank and run off enoguh to replace with a-freeze takes a while to run off but easier than draining
The testers are useless and a waste of time and money. If the car has had no antifreeze in it the contamination in the cooling system gives false readings. It needs draining, including dropping the thermostat, flushing and refilling as it will be full of crap. On the basis the system takes 6 litres (valvers take more I think) and you want 50/50, you need 3 litres of antifreeze.
testicles to the testers i run all my car on nearly neat anti freeze, the way i see it the less water in there the less rust i will get!
But be aware that antifreeze is less eficient at absorbing heat. If you're worried about rust don't use water from the tap, use the de-ionised stuff from Halfords!
GSF told me I needed two 1.5 l bottles of G12+ in mine, topped up with water. Personally I use tap water as I'm happy to let the rust inhibitors in the coolant do their job. Just wish I didn't have a coolant leak as it's costing me a fortune in G12+ ...
You need 50:50 Mix it up in a old squash bottle, and then whenever you need to top up, you'll keep the mixture correct. If you are at all uncertain about what's in there, drain and refill - it takes all of half an hour. And costs about a fiver. Simon.