Hi Scotty,
A huge fan!!! Love your work and grateful to you for the immense knowledge I gain watching your content.
I was wondering if its okay to use distilled water instead of coolant in a car, does it make much of a difference? Would love to know your thoughts on it from your experience.
I drive a lexus rx 350 2006 with 117440 kms in the middle east.
Thanks in advance and much love.
R
Well if you buy coolant it usually comes next 50/50 with coolant and distilled water mix. You can't run a car on just water because you will get cavitation and corrosion inside the engine
@scottykilmer thank you 🙂
I was wondering if its okay to use distilled water instead of coolant in a car, does it make much of a difference?
If it gets below 32⁰F, your engine block with freeze. Unlike most forms of ice, water expands when frozen. Straight water and below freezing conditions will pop your freeze plugs, which may total your car if it's not a recent model year. The antifreeze also raises the boiling point of water. Using distilled water alone would require a slight increase in your radiator's cooling capacity. There's limited real estate under the hood; every cubic inch of space counts, and you can't waste space on an inefficient radiator.
The water pump was designed with the anticipation of a 50/50 mix of antifreeze and distilled water. If you put straight distilled water in the cooling system, it will start to cavitate. Cavitation basically means the water pump will not pump properly, creating potential hot spots within the engine. Hot spots can spell disaster for your head gasket.
Long story short, always use a 50/50 mix of coolant and distilled water in your cooling system, and flush it per the manufacturer's recommended coolant change intervals.
@justin-shepherd water actually cools better than antifreeze, but you still need it for the reasons you listed (the most important being freeze and corrosion protection). Also, antifreeze doesn't elevate the boiling point a whole lot (6 deg C.). The pressure cap does the most work. At 15 PSI, the boiling point goes up 20 deg C. Freeze plugs are misnomer. They are there purely for the engine block casting process.
Interesting, so why are they known as freeze plugs? Did some guy who doesn't know much about internal combustion engines coin that term and the name stick, or something like that?
@justin-shepherd probably because they pop out when the block freezes. But it’s not why they were put there.
Makes sense, thanks for that!
Distilled water will actually corrode aluminum. In addition the water pump seals rely on additives in coolant as a lubricant. Without that lubrication the seals will deteriorate and start leaking.
