manonastick

Hey guys

Today while driving a very short trip(10min) i realised my s2k heater wasnt getting hot as its cold over here i australia. Slowly driving (i kept revs at 2.5k) the temperature gauge jump up to 4bar suddenly and i quickly pulled side and turned car off (within 10secs of reaching 4bars). To my surprise i found a hose loose and leaked a fair bit coolant out and i walked to nearby petrol station to buy coolant to top it up. It was fine and i drove home 5 mins away keeping revs at 2k and flushed the system and bleed the coolant and heater and temperature was back to normal. Bit concerned if i would do any damage but i did turn it off quite quickly so i hoping im fine. Motor only has 50k miles on it too.

Just want to rant but yeah lucky i being paranoid that my heater wasn't working

Car Analogy

Here in the US, we have this thing called cold weather. So when you go to the store to buy 'coolant', what you are really buying is antifreeze, so your engine doesn't crack from freezing, expanding water. This has very little cooling capacity, so you have to mix it with water, usually around 50%. Sometimes its premixed with water. The stuff also helps lube the water pump seal.

So just curious, when you buy 'coolant' in the land down under, what are you actually buying, besides just distilled water?

Oh, and if you overheated, you likely would have had been able to tell. Bubbling, hissing in radiatot overflow, lots of loud metal clicking as it cooled after you turned it off, smell of cooked oil, etc.

manonastick

I may have over exaggerated abit when I said cold weather but I am bad with the cold and it a only around 50 Fahrenheit. I bought pre mixed coolant and we don't have subzero temperatures in Sydney so rarely any store will have anti freeze. On theoverheatinng side engine was as normal as I stopped immediately and nothing out of the normal occur topped it and drive it gentley home with temps at normal and flushed and bleed.

Thanks for the reply though ensuring(hopefully) didn't do any damage.

windhund116

Just check water and oil levels, more frequently for next couple of weeks. No problems... you should be ok.

Car Analogy

Yeah, so what is the difference between the 'coolant' you can buy down there and antifreeze? Here in US there is only one type of product, antifreeze and coolant are the same thing here (yeah, there is a rainbow of different colors, this car needs that color, that car needs this color, but all of them are both antifreeze and coolant).

So what is 'coolant' that you can buy there? How os it different than antifreeze?

manonastick

I have no idea lol

Ill just link what i bought here

windhund116

Think you'll be fine. Heck, better than nothing. Distilled water would have been fine, in a pinch.

Next change, you may want to go back to OEM Honda coolant.

Slowcrash_101

Meh, Honda coolant is definitely fine but it's not imperative that it's used. TBH any OAT based silicate free coolant will work nicely as long as it's not Dex-Cool, I don't know why GM still uses that crap but that's what it is...crap. Our engine block, the intake manifold, heater, water lines, and radiator core are all made of aluminum. It's not some mystery metal, like Porsche, or Jaguar($65 for a gallon bottle of coolant for a boxter...).

That coolant however, I probably wouldn't leave in the car for more than a year. Then again I change my coolant every 3 years, regardless of mileage, because I'm OCD like that.

manonastick

Happened to me at late at night so I didn't have much options. Anyway the car is fine and finger crossed it will be that way.
Thanks for the reply guys