I am ready for a antifreeze/coolant change.

Since I gave my left foot for a "Jug of Jaguar Juice" I would like to try a good evaluation on the product.

Whats my best way to ensure I have a totally clean system before I add the new antifreeze/coolant I bought at the Jaguar Dealer.

thanks

Ken

 

I do it this way...
drain the system completely. Then use a coolant flush additive with pure water and drive as directed, usually around 50 miles to break down any crud/deposits/ leak stop or buildup in the system.
Drop this stuff, I usually jack the rear of the car to throw the mix forward to the radiator drain port.
Then more fresh water, run the motor to circulate it. Then drop this...
Final stage is to fill with de-ionozed/distilled water in a 50/50 mix of Jag coolant. It helps to have the heater on full, squeeze the top hoses and fill slowly to purge any air.
It's a bit laborious, but I know it'll be right. Reason being the S/C has added plumbing.

 

Sean,

Very fastidious and an excellent procedure.

I must confess to cutting corners on the intermediate drive ( ) but at once every five years it's no hardship and I'll add that to my routine.

Never read about 'reverse flushing' nowadays. You remember that?

Graham

 

The problem is that starting with a 50/50 mix means that the final mix is not 50/50 due to the inability to fully drain from the radiator draincock. There is plain water that is not accounted for in the premix.

It is better to drain, add full strength coolant in the amount calculated to be half of the cooling system capacity, then add water to dilute as required.

Even when the vehicle is lifted at the rear and drained of as much water as possible, if full strength coolant is added to the remaining water, then the resulting mix can get close to 50/50 but will still be a little weak. This result was observed using a Prestone antifreeze tester to confirm the conclusion based upon specified capacity and the amount of full strength coolant that the system accepted before overflow.

The coolant manufacturers' literature states that 70/30 is actually the mix that achieves lowest freezing protection and highest boilover protection. This is very hard, if not impossible to achieve on a X308 without draining through the engine drains due to incomplete drainage.

 

Take the Jaguar Juice back to the dealer for a refund. It's simply re-labelled Dexcool if it's the orange stuff or Prestone if it's the green stuff- both available at Canadian tire for a fraction of the price.

 

i dont know what is so special about Jag Juice, but i know on my old GTI that it required VW-Audi G12 Coolant, otherwise it would throw a code, and cause the car to run at improper operating temperature, saw it happen on my friends B5 Audi, he was being Cheap, by the way how much does Jag Juice cost?

 

OK thanks all for your comments. Just what I was up against. So I actually drained and filled the cooling system about 6 times, with straight water. The sixth time I inspected the water and finally the color was gone. Each time I drained it I could get about half out, of 10.6 L. Took me 5 days.

The last three drains I refilled with distilled water. Then drained it again ready for the juice. I was able to add 4.5 L of coolant. It was a bright clear orange. So I am probably about 40% antifreeze to water. I will try to get a little more straight juice in over time trying to reach 50%

When it came in contact with the water it turned your everyday green color. No more Orange........

I still need to take it for a long run (working too much) but I did take it our for a quick ride. For the first time ever my car ran it's thermostat setting. I need to take it on further runs to test, but today I was running at 195 - 196 degrees F (90.5 C) which I think is my thermostat rating? Outside air temp 28 degrees C, a pretty warm day.

When I turned the car off the fan only ran for a little over a minute, instead of the usual 5 mins.

I even noticed my needle was moving with the opening and closing of the tstat or maybe it was just a bit of air to burb out? Didn't move much but at one point it fell just slight lower than N. Before it was ALWAYS half needle width above.

I will let you know what happens over a 3 or 4 hour run. Prior to this I was not boiling over and I did not have a flow of coolant on the ground, just running a bit hot.

Thanks again for listening ........ oh ya I also added a cleaning agent the first draining.

Dealer charged me 85 dollars for 4.5 L including tax. I think I have spent 100 bucks with distilled water and cleaning agent included.

Ken

 

Glad everything went well- you certainly did a through job of flushing. For reference next time you replace the coolant, here's exactly the same coolant at Crappy Tire:

Prestone Extended Life DEX-COOL Antifreeze/Coolant | Canadian Tire

$19.95 per 3.7L

 

Well done, and an ever so slight improvement by the sound of it.

@ Plums, yes I wasn't crystal, pure in first and mix to a tester. Last 2 times have been on new engines so a dry system, must of just took that for granted

@ Mikey, does your stuff change colour magically like the Jag stuff? Occording to the OP, it goes from clear orange to green...

 

I have no idea as the inside of the reservoir is black, but there again a colour change is not really relevant or indicative of much. Jaguar requires that all fluids - coolant, oil, brake fluid, etc etc. must meet a certain specification. The particular spec for coolant was defined and used by Ford, which is very good news for Jag owners as it means that the fluid is widely available and inexpensive. The product I linked to is one of many that meet the Ford spec without inferring that it's the only or best product. The retail store is a nationwide chain in Canada that every red-blooded Canadian loves to bash but couldn't live without.

Jaguar obviously does not manufacture it's own coolant, engine oil, brake fluid etc etc, but makes available repackaged fluids with it's own label- at dealership prices.

The same logic applies to spark plugs, air filters, oil filters etc. etc.

 

Are you sure? Seems to be bad advice.

There was a transition between two different types of coolant specified for the X308. Only the later years take dexcool. The earlier years did *not* take dexcool. According to his signature the OP has a 1998. That is somewhere around the transition year.

Accuracy is quite important because of that transition. On the X308 the factory fill should be marked on the cap, but it still cannot be the last word because it may have been refilled with something else.

Maybe Sean can chime in with the exact transition year, offset for UK versus US year reference of course

edit: found the reference and Jaguar specification chart as below:



https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...olant-q-35038/

So for a 1998, and part of 1999 the specified coolant is DOW D542. The VIN separation is 878388.

Note the caution at the bottom of the chart.

 

@KillerKat

If your coolant is now green, but it was orange ... be very careful of what you add in the future. It sounds like you had either a dexcool or so called universal coolant in there and now have a non dexcool coolant installed.

See post #11 for the reason.

 

Absolutely agree.

The OP mentioned the colour of the pricy Jaguar Juice being orange. This would indicate that he was not furnished with traditional ethylene glycol (green 'Prestone'). I presume the dealer would have supplied the correct coolant but if not- that's a whole different fettle of kitsch.

 

See post #11 again. It was edited to include confirmation from another thread and the Jaguar specification chart.

What the OP actually said was "No more Orange........". That implies that was the *old* coolant. Not the new coolant somehow magically turning from orange to green.

The OP has done a good flush, so he now has the correct coolant as specified by Jaguar for his particular vehicle according to the chart. Why his vehicle had orange in it is unknown. But, with the thorough flush, the conversion back to factory spec should not be problematic.

 

Color update .........
I came home for lunch and wanted to view it again ... Although it appears Green, I sucked some out and it is actually orange. (Although my wife won't be happy I used her turkey baster, she doesn't know yet)

What is happening to me is that the tank is black and when the orange gets on the black it APPEARS green. Bright Green. And when I look in the tank it also looks VERY green, but when I suck some out in a clear tube it is still very orange.

Sorry to confuse you all and thanks for helping me. I will take a pic tomorrow. But I can easily see how someone could add green! Not knowing.

I keep learning ...........

Going out for a cruise tonight.

 

Update ........

City driving stop and go ......... outside air temp 29*C .......... coolant operating temp 88*C - 94*C

Temp would pretty well stay at 88*C a bit of a heavy foot max 94*C

Did not notice fans running when turning off ignition.

Restarted engine and turned on A/C, both fans operational.

Still need to highway test.

 

Update ....

Heavy traffic, Hot day, something I have been avoiding ......... Yesterday my wife wanted to go to Costco during rush hour. It was 28 - 29 *C. My ultra gauge showed readings of 90*C to 97*C in stop and go traffic. Some lights taking me three times to cross the intersection. ( I was a nervous wreck! ) Whats interesting about my findings in this heavy traffic, once I hit 97*C it would fall back down to 91*C even though i was stopped. Intake Air temp 50*C. This test went on for about 45 minutes.

The needle on my dash gauge also was moving up and down, about half a needle width. (90*C half needle width below middle line and 97*C half needle above middle line) The needle did not move like this before. Although it could be a result of the coolant cleaning agent I added. Not sure.

Once parked at Costco noticed no fans running (did not use A/C during trip) which was not the case before. Usually in hot days and heavy traffic I would park the car and notice a "hot" smell coming from under the car, and fans always on when parked.

I am tempted to go back to the Canadian Tire cheap coolant to see if there really is a difference or not. Probably need to wait until next summer as our days will cool off now for winter.

I changed the coolant to the Jaguar Juice because I had the cooling system totally redone, new water pump, rad flush, temostat and termo manifold all replaced. Shop added the everyday now acceptable coolant. He told me they put it in all the cars today! It was the only thing i could think of that MAY be wrong still. Of course I am not sure this dealer juice made a difference or not ............ I will change it over again next summer to see if there is a actual difference or not. Car is going into storage for winter.

Thanks so much for all the info you gave me, I appreciate it.

 

Sounds like the cooling fans cycling on and off. Normal.

I doubt that you'd see any difference. There's little or no difference in heat rejection coefficency from one type to another and certainly none from one brand to another. I'd leave the car as-is and enjoy the ride.

 

Resolved ...........

I almost went blind reading all I could on this subject! And i have decided to take Mikeys' advice and enjoy the ride.

But I thought I would share some of my findings if it may help others.

(disclaimer: I am not a mechanic and am not giving any advice to others on what to do)(Being a driver more than a mechanic, I always have an eye on the temp gauge through the mountain passes of British Columbia on any vehicle I drive, which have been many including trucks)

I contacted Havoline and Prestone on this issue and Mikey is correct their is little difference between product in terms of heat exchange properties. Prestone asked me if I for sure knew the percentage of water EXACTLY of before and after. I could not answer that as the shop added the last batch. Prestone tech department makes a stronger claim that the difference I may have noticed could be because I added a cleaning agent during my last flush and that may have removed scaling in the system.

Jaguar Canada verified my correct product with them was Dow-542 for my vin#. And I should note their product is available at considerable savings from other parts stores. Although I was forced to go the the dealer here in Kelowna.

All the techs I contacted did also make note of using the proper product due to different metals used and seals. But I could not really find one product that could guarantee me the proper fluid other than Jaguar itself for my VDP. Maybe I didn't look hard enough? Or maybe I don't understand, or trust myself with understanding compatibility product codes. The later probably the most accurate.

Here is what I do know:

One MUST be very careful not to mix products that are not suited to each other. Have a look at the two pics below:

In this picture the coolant looks green. But it is NOT it simply looks green because of the black surface. So to the not so knowledgeable wanting to top up, they may simply add green fluid. I spilled a bit on purpose to show how green the fluid can look against a black surface. Inside the tank is also green looking, just a poor photo.



In the photo below shows actual color in the turkey baster I used for demo




One needs to be very sure they are doing this correctly and if unsure one may want to top up with water if in a situation on the roadside.

I have done more road tests and I am now happy with the results and my conclusion is a good flushing with a coolant cleaner and new fresh coolant will be included in regular maintenance for my VDP.

thanks so much to all that have helped me in my project! Great forum!