do i really have to use genuine honda antifreeze coolant?
 

The coolant resevoir is below min. the manual says that i should always use genuine honda antifreeze coolant. if it is not available that i could use another major-brand non-silicant coolant as a temporary replacement recomended for aluminum engines. It also says continous use of any non honda coolant can result in corrosion and causing cooling system to malfunction. Do i really have to use Genuine honda coolant. or is this bull? Cause i want to fill my resevoir.

It's bull. I use the Prestone pre-mixed 50/50 stuff (that way I can keep it in the trunk).

I have used both. So I dont thinks its a big deal..

You need to use a silicate free anti-freeze with this engine. You may want to do a search to get the details. Prestone sells this, but it is not their standard product. There's something about silicates that doesn't get along with aluminum.

All S2000's "after" MY'00 uses Honda's Type II coolant (whatever that really means). According to the service manual, this TII coolant is good for the first 10 years (I'm not saying I truly believe this). So, be careful what you put in there. It might affect the longevity of the coolant and who knows what else.

Honda uses a non-silicate formula - I have pictures from Honda Engineering of head erosion from using regular "green" coolants. Do not do it!

There are other non-silicates. Toyota's Red coolant, and Ford's "Premium Gold" are excellent, long-life coolants. The Ford product is based on the G-5 glysantin formulation developed by BASF, and widely used in German luxo/perf cars.

Depending on how low it is, why not just add some distilled water to get the level back above minimum? Sure you might be below the ideal 50/50 mix, but probably not by enough to effect your freeze or corrosion protection by much. Better yet, add about a half bottle of Redline Water Wetter available at your local Pep Boys.

I have an '03 and the coolant is green! If the regular stuff won't work, I think they could have avoided some problems by making it a different color.

I just bought some inexpensive NAPA brand coolant to use when changing the coolant in my '01 Pathfinder. It says "This product is a low silicate antifreeze containing inhibitors providing protection... This product has been formulated for use in automobiles and light duty trucks and protects all cooling system metals surfaces, including aluminum." Under ingredients it says "ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, dipotassium phosphate, water, corrosion inhibitors, silicates, defoamer, dyes". Will it work?

My Pathfinder owners manual says to use "genuine Nissan anti-freeze coolant or equivalent". This is selfservingly vague in my opinion. The Haynes manual for my Pathfinder simply says to use an "ethylene glycol-based antifreeze". Perhaps we just need an aftermarket manual for the S2000 to tell us what to really use?

I believe the color was chosen for safety reasons and recyclability. If someone sees a bottle of green fluid, they know it's antifreeze. If it's blue, it probably is winshield fluid. If it's red and oily, then it's probably ATF.

Although the low silicate coolant might work, I wouldn't take the chance. There could be seals or gaskets that Honda uses that are incompatible with silicates, and you'd find out years later the hard way. No silicates means no silicates.

OK, so what do the MY2000 use, then? I'm getting near the "low" mark.