Does anyone know when Prestone was 1st available as pre-mix?
I first saw it on the shelves about 20 years ago. May have been around earlier…but not around where I lived…or the stores I visited.
I would say that it became available shortly after Prestone realized that there was more profit in water than ethyl glycol.
Pre mix might seem a ridiculous expense but consider the cost of potatoes and potato chips or look at that soda from tap water machine being pushed on television and radio. We seem to value convenience in so many ways and for those who rarely do any work on their vehicles while they do regularly check fluid levels the 50-50 mix is great. I mix my own at about 40-60 and have several gallons on the shelf now. It has been on the market for many years and I do recall how laughable I thought it was for many years. The greatest expense involved is shipping. They could sell the bottles half full of antifreeze and let the customer add the water and cut the freight bill considerably.
I seem to remember first using it it 97-99. I needed antifreeze and didn’t want to go get a bottle of distilled water. I wouldn’t use tap water because at the time it was unfiltered, and was nasty rusty hard water.
You pay for convenience I guess.
Well a couple of nice things about the pre-mixed:
-It’s at the perfect mix ratio.
-It’s probably made with either distilled or filtered and de-mineralized water. You’re supposed to use distilled water when you refill your radiator, but I have yet to meet anyone that doesn’t just use tap water.