tommyhondacar

I have a 2002 Honda Accord SE 4-door. It is a surprise it has last this long. I don't believe it has ever been serviced in terms of the cooling system. I was thinking of flushing out the system. However, I have a few concerns. The water supplied to my home, is WELL WATER (should I have problems with mineral deposits and such). The water here is HARD water, the glass shower doors are coated in thick white residue. Also do Honda's require their own type of Coolant, I know P/S fluid and ATF are specific. Can I just buy a regular jug of Prestone 50/50?

94EG8

Honda does have their own special coolant (its a darker emerald green, not the normal neon green, or in the case of newer hondas its light blue type II coolant) that said regular 50/50 Prestone will work fine. I would run distilled water to mix with, especially if you have hard water.

brakedrum

Any decent quality 50/50 mix should do. Or mix it yourself in a container that lets you precisely measure 50/50. Some say distilled (demineralized) water is a must. Some say just use clean water. You probably want to buy some distilled since your home water has a lot of mineral. I have a countertop water distiller and have always distilled a couple of gallons a few days before doing the F&F. Accords are prone to getting air in the cooling system so definitely use the bleeder valve to indicate "full," temp dial on dash twisted all the way to HOT and then let the engine run to good and hot (fan comes on) and then top it off until all the bubbles stop. A spill proof funnel is perfect for the job.

dlewis2583

I have a 97 Accord SE, where can you find this special coolant for hondas?

brakedrum

C'mon. It's a Honda!

94EG8

At your local honda dealership.

dlewis2583

cool...man! Thanks!

CRZ1

I changed my 97 accord coolant first time last year. This year, I changed timing belt, so the coolant got changed the second time. I should change it much earlier but I do not know before due to everything works. The radiator hoses never got replaced. I plan to replace them next year. I use Honda coolant, pre-mixed 50/50, $15 retail, $12 if I use coupon, $11 if I order online and pickup at dealer's parts department. Use other brand won't save you much money, I would suggest use Honda coolant, make is simple.

For my car, not only coolant first time changed last, ATF was also first time drained and filled last year, brake fluid was first time bleeded last year. I was convinced by Honda quality so I buy Honda battery also.

brakedrum

After the kind of (brutal) Summer 2010 gave us, everybody should be flushing and filling and checking hoses this Fall.

dlewis2583

Great info! thanks Man. I've been using that preston 50/50 and im refilling my tank at least every month and a half..idk if i have a leak or this just not good collant for a honda...

tommyhondacar

I do own a 97' accord as well, so this information will carry on over. By the way, I have lived in Miami and the 2002 accord has been in our family since 03' and never been serviced, in terms of coolant.

redbull-1

Has your timing belt ever been replaced? If so, most mechanics will recommend and change the water pump at that time. Therefore, some or most of the coolant likely would have been changed then.

tommyhondacar

Honestly. I do not believe so. That car is a trooper if it has lasted this long. I know one belt was replaced but not the Timing Belt which I know is rubber and will probably snap some time soon. It has about 110k miles if I am not mistaken.

Aside from a Power Steering Pump, a starter, a few batteries, and transmission that needs to be replaced soon, nothing has been touched on this car in terms of mechanical.

I guess I might as well have the timing belt and water pump replaced while I am at it.

redbull-1

That's pretty good for the timing belt. When I had a CRX Si and a 5th gen Accord, I really hated having to change the timing belt, as I put a lot of miles on the cars pretty fast. I put almost 300,000 miles on my 5th gen Accord before I gave it to my nephew.

My current 8th gen Accord I4 doesn't have a timing belt, so I am relieve of that.

DCFIVER

Use Honda coolant.

19Accord97

I just use the premixed Prestone neon green stuff.

I leak coolant in the winter months, so for $8 a gallon its not bad.

clempot911

I know Honda tells you to only use their own, and that’s certainly the safe thing to do. That said, I have 2 Accords, one is 10 years old, the other 7. Both have been running Prestone ‘one color fits all’ for several years now. And the older one actually ran Havoline Dexcool for 4 years. No issues.

I would NOT pre-mix coolant before putting it into the car unless you are only filling the coolant reservoir. If you are pre-mixing and pouring it into the radiator, I hope you are also testing the coolant to see what protection it offers. I’ll bet you it’s not what you think. The reason is simple, there will almost always be water left over in the system from doing the coolant flushing. When you add a mix of antifreeze at 50/50 concentration, it gets diluted further by the water in the system already, like the heater core and it’s hoses, etc.

Assuming you are going for a 50/50 ratio of coolant to water, the way to do it is find out what the capacity is of your particular cooling system, divide that by 2, pour that much undiluted antifreeze into the radiator, then top off with distilled water. That’s it – it mixes itself, and you are guaranteed to have the right ratio. Just remember to fill the reservoir with equal amounts of coolant and water.

DCFIVER

Why bother? Just use water if you choose not to use Honda coolant. Same stupidity.

clempot911

I have not used their product, both cars are doing fine....so the reason I should have used Honda coolant is??????

Do you believe that Honda has some 'special engineering' in their cooling system that no other car on earth has, and requires only their specific coolant or else something bad happens?

What other Honda fluids should I be paying more for...Honda motor oil? Honda windshield wiper fluid? I think paying 3x-4x times more for the same product is stupidity, but that's just me. Like I said in my post - use the Honda product, it's the safe thing to do.

DCFIVER

If you bothered researching as much as you bother posting bullshit, then perhaps you would be better informed. Honda coolant is around $9 gallon. About the same price as the crap you put in your car now. Im not going to try to bother to explain the diffrences in HOAT, OAT, EG,sillicates, non-silicate and the various other coolant combinations to a moron who uses DEX-COOL in his Honda. Use what ever your little brain desires, its just a car and it makes no difference, they all have 4 tires and go VROOM....

94EG8

Prestone is fine. Dex-cool is not though. It has a nasty tendency to eat through intake manifold gaskets, and has at least been rumored to cause some nasty sludge in the cooling system if it gets mixed in with regular green coolant.

clempot911

I remember reading about the gasket problems years ago. GM continued using Dexcool, and if gaskets were still failing they would be bankrupt by now....oh wait, they ARE bankrupt...Hmmmmmm. Maybe somewhere along the way the formulation changed, or they changed what the gaskets are made of.

Thanks for the informative post.

The on-line place I usually buy Honda parts from would not ship anti-freeze, and my local dealer was selling it for $14.00 a gallon for the pre-mixed stuff – so 2 of those, with tax, would be over $30. Half of that, $15, was for water. No thanks. The big concern is over silicates and borates (and sometime phosphates) in the original “green” stuff. At the time all I could find that did NOT have these was DexCool, and I’m well aware of what the concern is over this stuff. From what I read, problems can happen when people do not keep the coolant topped off (may be because of a leak), and over time that can cause the stuff to react with air and possibly gel. I gave it a try and it worked for me.

94EG8

They updated the gaskets. IIRC they're a metal design now.

361 accord

real honda coolant is blue now and it is epic, its been tested to cause no leaks in ****, whereas regular *** USDM coolant has silicates that wear sutff down and cause coolant loss and water pump failure and erectile dysfunction

so, use blue honda coolant or just plain water (it doesnt get cold here so i just use water) and it runs noticeably cooler than before with 50/50 plain antifreeze or whatever the hell was in it when i got it

94EG8

You can still buy the older dark green stuff. The blue stuff is known as type II

Temperature isn't the only reason you run antifreeze, plain old water does some pretty nasty stuff to the inside of a cooling system. Also antifreeze not only lowers the freezing point, it also raises the boiling point.