ND2RACE

I'm a GM certified tech, have been for some time, I've worked in 3 dealerships and have friends who work in many more. If you think for a second that anyone mixes anything other then tap water into dexcool, you would be sadly mistaken. The only exception is GM makes a pre-mix of deionized water and dexcool for use in hybrid cooling systems, that's the Volt, the new Bolt, and the like.

To quote GM

"The engine coolant is a solution made up of a 50-50 mixture of DEX-COOL and clean drinkable water. The coolant solution carries excess heat away from the engine to the radiator, where the heat is dissipated to the atmosphere. "

Take that however you want, but it's the truth.

kingtal0n

iTrader: (1)

There are examples in the medical physiology book about injecting 100% pure water into a person. There is absolutely nothing toxic or dangerous about it, even when injected. Initially because it bypassed the mouth/esophagus/stomach/liver to get the blood it may lysis red blood cells nearby the injection site, but that is to be expected as any cell which nears a high concentration of pure water is bound to take some of that water up, and possibly lysis. This is not critical or dangerous as red blood cells typically last 90 days or 120 days and often get caught/ruptured in the spleen (the red blood cell graveyard as some call it) and die/expire in large numbers quite frequently.

"In general the body loses 250,000 cells per second (all kinds). 99% of sweat is water. you replace 95% of your body each year. "I love these book quotes.

"the atpase is 60 times more powerful than a diesel engine of the same size"

"muscle fiber is the only place amino acids are stored long term in the body"

and I say that pure water is in fact quite drinkable and delicious- avoid injecting it if possible though.

RPM WS6

iTrader: (3)

I certainly can't speak for the practices of individual GM dealers who may be using concentrate mixed with tap for in-house coolant service, but the GM approved premixes on the market (such as Prestone) list demineralized for the water ingredient, and this was the case long before cars such as the Volt were on the market. As these mixes have factory approval and claim to "feature the precise factory-fill blend used by General Motors.....50% demineralized water" (this can be read right on the back of the jug), it stands to reason that such was also used on the assembly line. Regardless, if you are buying a GM approved Dexcool premix off the shelf you are getting 50% demineralized water.

The "deionized" standard does seem to have appeared more recently for the hybrid cars, but use of demineralized is definitely not a new or recent development for the approved premixes.

kingtal0n

iTrader: (1)

They just want you to know its pure water mixed with whatever ingredients are in the antifreeze, not just tap water in the bottle you are buying.


Should be common sense from both consumer and engineering points of view (you wouldn't expect tap water in any bottle that anybody would ever sell you for anything) i.e. nobody bottles tap and sells it, even natural spring water is filtered for biologically active and ionically balanced for flavor. I can say that without ever even seeing the plant/facility too because it would be unsafe to drink otherwise.

Firebrian

I spent 30 yrs working with power and propulsion boilers and to my knowledge deionized and demineralized are the same thing, usually from cation and anion beds. It's just a matter of how far you go. Distilled water is from a different process.

We had distillers on board my ships. Both methods can give you extremely pure water. Demin water doesn't remove organics. So it's quite common to have carbon filters prior to the cat/anion beds to remove organics. Worse yet, those organics can plate over the resin beads rendering them less effective at ion exchange.

When I was doing my auto coolant changes 10-20 yrs ago I was bringing home 5 gallon jugs of demin water from the plant. My last coolant flush required 10 gallons of Walmart distilled water at 88c/gal. As I recall, our plant demin water standards were less than 50 ppb silica and a max of 10 umho/cm conductivity (10 uS)...giving a minimal level of Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium salts. Both types of purified waters tend to have pH's in the range of 5.5-7.0 (acidic leaning) which then requires additional buffering with other bases/buffers/amines, etc. before using them in the boilers/condensate systems. Those would bring the pH up into the range of 9.5 to 10.5 typically where corrosion is minimized. Our Coolant Ethylene Glycols have chemicals added to place them in the 8-10 pH range. Tap water usually ranges from 6.5 to 8.5. Some surface well waters could be as low as 5.0....not great in an automotive cooling system.

The summary below from an online source is a good read. I too vote for distilled/demineralized water over tap water.


Distilled and deionised water are both forms of purified water from which dissolved salts and minerals have been removed.

Distilled water is water purified by distillation which involves boiling the water to produce water vapour or steam which is then condensed to produce purified liquid water. Because the solutes are not normally vaporised, they remain in the boiling solution, and the produced distilled water can be freed from dissolved its salts and minerals. In addition, many of the particulates in the water, such as viruses and bacteria, are also removed. Distillation, however, does not completely purify water, because of contaminants with similar boiling points and droplets of unvaporised liquid carried with the steam. However, 99.9% pure water can be obtained by distillation.

For every application a required conductivity is used. However, some conductivity will always remain, because of the acid/base equilibrium of water. The limiting conductivity is due to self-ionization: H2O  H+ + OH–.

Distilled water in equilibrium with the carbon dioxide in the air has a conductivity of about 0.8×10–6 siemens cm–1. Repeated distillation in a vacuum can produce conductivity water with the conductivity brought down to 0.043×10-6 siemens cm–1 at 18°C.

Deionised water, also called demineralised or demiwater, is water from which dissolved ionic salts have been removed by ion-exchange techniques with cation and anion resins. It is used for many purposes as an alternative to distilled water. The best quality of deionised water has a conductivity of 0.055 × 10–6 siemens cm–1.

In a nutshell, deionization removes ionic salts but not molecules (organics, sugars, etc.) and distillation removes all with the exception of contaminants that distill over with the steam or are carried by it.

pantera_efi

iTrader: (1)

Hi Brian, you are the first to respond, in this LONG thread, stating a reference to Coolant System Voltage, a BAD thing for an engine/motor.

Good Work.

The tread was begun/about HyPer Lube coolant additive, a VERY GOOD product.
When added to the coolant, this product "balances" coolant for best engine life.

Now your tech about current conductivity is VERY IMPORTANT to engine/radiator life.
I measure Coolant System Voltage AND sell items (Anodes) to lower this voltage.

Example : The Radiator Core will be destroyed the Coolant Voltage is too high.

Lance

grinder11

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE=kingtal0n;19727600]There are examples in the medical physiology book about injecting 100% pure water into a person. There is absolutely nothing toxic or dangerous about it, even when injected. Initially because it bypassed the mouth/esophagus/stomach/liver to get the blood it may lysis red blood cells nearby the injection site, but that is to be expected as any cell which nears a high concentration of pure water is bound to take some of that water up, and possibly lysis. This is not critical or dangerous as red blood cells typically last 90 days or 120 days and often get caught/ruptured in the spleen (the red blood cell graveyard as some call it) and die/expire in large numbers quite frequently.

"In general the body loses 250,000 cells per second (all kinds). 99% of sweat is water. you replace 95% of your body each year. "I love these book quotes.

"the atpase is 60 times more powerful than a diesel engine of the same size"

"muscle fiber is the only place amino acids are stored long term in the body"

and I say that pure water is in fact quite drinkable and delicious- avoid injecting it
I know this is an old thread, but I'm STILL LMFAO....
To paraphrase Peter Frampton......
Who's water, what water, where the Hell did I buy my water!!!!!
btw-WTF does "muscle fiber" and "amino acid" have to do with engine coolant??!!!!! Wish I'd read this a year ago, cuz I'd have to find a doctor to get me to stop laughing!!!!!!!!!