Phosphate free antifreeze

[John Larson <jdlarson@ix.netcom.com>]

As a Porsche/VW/Audi technician with 26 years experience, I can assure
you that the switch to phosphate free coolant has to do with reasons
other than politics. Vanagons have severe problems with electrolytic
corrosion of cylinder head studs when using normal"safe for aluminum"
coolants. These steel studs pass through the water jacket. When we began
really seeing head gasket failures, when the first ones were 3 or 4
years old, the cars that had had a water pump or other work involving
replacing the coolant were the first to fail, many with one or more
broken studs, a failure requiring complete tear down and necessitating
stud removal with an EDM.(Electron Discharge Machine.) Turned a $1200
job into a $3200 job. Without fail, these cars had had regular coolant
installed during the previous repairs. Sold me on the real thing right
then and there. VW sells it, about $16/ gallon, Quakerstate has it too,
at a considerable savings ($(9 to $12). Cheaping out here doesn't, in my
opinion, make sense here. You're gonna pay a few bucks more for a gallon
or two every 2 years (you DO flush the coolant every two years, right?),
and that's not a lot of money, really. So you sacrifice a nice 6-pack a
year, maybe two. Jaguar specifies it, and we routinely install it in
BMWs and Mercedes, as well as Porsches and VW/Audis. We service a
considerably larger number of Vanagons and other VW/Audi cars now than
we did in 1988, and we've never had a refailure of a Vanagon head gasket
done here and which continued to use the phosphate free coolant, nor of
any other VW/Audi product. I, personally, am convinced. John