Top 10 antifreeze

For an automobile engine (with rare exceptions — if you are unlucky to have a Zaporozhets or lucky old Porsche), antifreeze is no less important than engine oil: unfortunately, most of the heat released during the combustion of fuel has to be dispersed into the atmosphere. So the reliability of the heat sink and the ability to use the car all year round is the first thing worth saying “thank you” to antifreeze.

But sooner or later, everyone will have to choose antifreeze, except perhaps the owners of new cars with a “lifetime” fill - the rest of the regulations require regular replacement of coolant. However, even without routine replacements, sooner or later it will have to affect the cooling system during repairs, draining the old antifreeze - so maybe, after all, replace it with a new one? However, the question "what antifreeze to buy?" Can pretty strain your head. Someone, having listened to the neighbors in the garages, goes to choose antifreeze by color - this is true, the trouble is that the color of antifreeze, depending on its properties, is not standardized by strict rules, two antifreeze of the same color can have completely different composition. And the same antifreeze can be supplied in different colors for different plants: for example, CoolStream Premium, in retail orange, at the Kaluga Volvo plant goes already yellow, in the Opel of the St. Petersburg assembly it was pink, and Yaroslavl poured it all Komatsu diesel engines are already blue! Someone recollects the “Volkswagen” classification, but the store begins to think - “can I pour G12 ++ if my G12 is the same figure?”.

For convenience, we will write about the differences between different classes of antifreeze in conclusion, and now we’ll proceed to the more interesting - we will begin to rake the canister deposits on the shelves of car shops to choose the ones that really should be paid attention to, and which “type of antifreeze” is better to bypass by the side.

Top Antifreeze Ratings - Top 10

What antifreeze choose?

Let's start with a little insight into history. At one time, we didn’t have a special choice of coolants - water, which in the winter had to be drained overnight, and good old Tosol, which many still consider to be some kind of special liquid. In fact, this is, of course, the typical representative of old ethylene glycol antifreezes, and the question "which is better - antifreeze or antifreeze"Formally meaningless. Why formal? Because those liquids that are now being produced under the name “Antifreeze” by anyone else (and this is, in fact, the trademark inherited by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise GosNIIOKHT from the Soviet Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology) often do not meet any technical requirements (!) and contain methanol, what can we say about the freezing temperature. Considering that even the old antifreezes of the “Volkswagen” class G11 already use more effective additives and a longer service life, now it does not make sense to choose Tosol.

And now let's talk exactly about Volkswagen accepted documentation classes. They differ from each other primarily in the composition and mechanism of action of the additive package.The fact is that with all its positive properties, ethylene glycol is not only poisonous, but also corrosive - so the additives in antifreeze actually protect the cooling system from the antifreeze itself in the first place.

AT G11 antifreeze silicate additives are used primarily (as in the Soviet Tosol) - their mechanism of action is very simple, a film is formed on the surfaces of the parts, preventing direct contact with ethylene glycol. But it also worsens the heat sink - therefore, as the forcing of automobile engines grows G12 antifreeze on the carboxylate basis, in which the additives are already working "pointwise", in the foci of corrosion. Such antifreezes last longer and are now the most common, especially G12 +having improved properties and compatibility with other types. If G12 and G11 cannot be mixed, then G12 + can already be added in both G11 and G12 (roughly speaking, the composition of G12 + additives is something between these types).

G12 ++ loebride antifreeze - This is a combination of organic corrosion inhibitors with all the same silicates. From here - and compatibility with other antifreezes, and high service life: factory fill can be calculated for the entire life of the car. That, however, should not be considered an ultimatum recommendation - let the replacement intervals be increased, but from time to time such antifreeze should be changed if the car is not bought for a year or two.

But with G13 The situation is generally interesting. For some reason, the statement that such antifreezes are made only on the basis of propylene glycol constantly roams from site to site in RuNet, but even the original “Volkswagen” antifreeze of this class is not. In fact, of course, environmentalists put their hand to the emergence of this type of antifreeze, but the improvement of "environmental friendliness" here is almost always achieved by replacing part of ethylene glycol with glycerol. In terms of the composition of the additives, these antifreezes also belong to lobride, and can be easily mixed with them.