Which coolant for Mk 1?

[Garbon]

Hi All

Which coolant should we be using in our Mk 1's, G10, G11, G 12 or G12 +?

Planning to do a coolant flush soon

Thanks

[jamesbest1974]

Thanks. I am looking for the same information?

James.

[GeorgeMK1]

Didnt think it mattered ?

[Preen59]

Any of the generic green stuff is fine.

Careful using G12 etc, it can eat your water jackets from what i've seen..

[Campaign]

I use G12+.
Used to use G11, but VW upgraded that to G12+ a number of years ago.
Have had no troubles with eating water jackets (maybe that was the old G12)
The generic green stuff should be fine - should do no harm, should provide the necessary anti-corrosive effect if used at appropriate concentration and changed every couple of years.
My memory is that plain water eventually led to corrosion of one of the pipes (in about a year)

[mikinoz]

If you don't know what's in it do a flush first then run it 30% glycol (concentrated coolant mixed as directed).

[Valver.]

A lot of the corrosion stories have come out of people mixing early and late coolants (or not fully flushing G11 prior to pouring in G12), which really is a recipe for disaster!

[Peter Jones]

I use the generic green stuff in all of mine but I do change it at least annually.

I seem to have the cooling systems apart pretty often so the coolant is always getting refreshed.

The Passat in particular had a putrid cooling system and had radiator stop leak put through it by a previous owner.

To get rid of that gunk I've had to replace all the hoses, radiator and heater core.

That car is getting a flush treatment and coolant change every 3 months for the first year.

Likewise with the MK1 I'm racing I just use the generic green stuff although I probably could/should run G12 as it's a 2.0 bottom end.

Again though I'm constantly pulling this apart so it probably gets a coolant change every 6 months or so any way.

Neither of those motors seem to be suffering any corrosion issues but they are receiving a pretty high level of maintenance.

[GRN_VAGN]

Same here, generic green stuff, i usually flush every 12 months, more lately due to having to replace cooling parts, and pulling engine out ect.

[tassie_euro_mk1]

Generic. Actually flushed and replaced the coolant in the mk1 passat on friday. I used Mitsubishi premixed coolant that we use at the workshop. But I have always used generic.