Your morning cup of car care...

Good morning and blessings to all of you this chilly day. With the weather getting colder no better time to check you antifreeze than now. Your vehicles cooling system is constantly under attack from corrosion to electrical charges and anything in between. It is not only important to just check the freeze point on your antifreeze but there are other things to check such as the Ph levels. Express Oil Change can help you determine the condition of your vehicles cooling system at absolutely no cost to you, just drop by today. There is a hidden monster in your antifreeze which becomes the silent killer of your vehicles cooling system components, it is called electrolysis. Electrolysis is an electrical charge or current that is present in cooling systems. Many things cause this but the main cause is a poor ground somewhere on the engine which allows current to enter into the antifreeze itself which is then carried throughout the entire system. As this pinned up current flows through the cooling system it is constantly zapping away at the walls that trap which are cylinder head coolant passages, heater cores, radiators, and water pumps to name a few. As this current tries to escape to get to a ground it is literally eating away at the inside of you cooling system. You can test for the presence of electrolysis in your coolant/antifreeze by following these steps. First be sure your engine is cool, never remove your radiator cap while the engine is hot, so after running it allow it to cool first. For this next steps you will need a multimeter or voltmeter capable of reading in tenths. Remove the radiator cap and ground the voltmeter to the negative battery terminal, then place the other voltmeter probe down into your antifreeze being sure you are not touching the walls of the radiator so you don't get a bad reading. You should immediately see the voltmeter begin to read voltage. All vehicles will have approximately .001 to .3 volts in the antifreeze, anything in excess of .3 volts is a high level of electrolysis. Don't panic, this can be corrected. You can have a repair shop inspect your vehicle for poor grounds, if none are found you should have them perform a coolant system flush. Now, you must have a flush done that involves a chemical flush, not just allow them to drain and refill the radiator, only the chemical flush will help to kill the electrolysis in the system. On most vehicle that use the older "green" antifreeze known as Ethylene Glycol the average recommendation for flushes the system is 30,000 miles. If your vehicle has the newer antifreeze known as extended life antifreeze, or "orange" then the flush intervals are said to be much higher anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 miles (be careful with going more than 50,000 miles on any extended life antifreeze). I hope this will be helpful to you this cool wintry morning. God Bless.